Ian James

The Desert Sun

The U.S. Forest Service’s proposal to grant Nestle a new permit to continue piping water out of a national forest for bottling has drawn a flood of written comments from the public, including a petition with more than 280,000 names demanding the agency “turn off the spigot.”

The debate over the company’s use of water from the San Bernardino National Forest has already led three environmental groups to sue the federal government in an attempt to shut down the 4.5-mile pipeline that Nestle uses to collect water. Now the fight is playing out in comments submitted to the Forest Service by the bottled water industry, environmental activists and many other Californians.

Two days after Monday’s deadline for comments from the public, a total of 568 letters, emails and other written comments had been posted on a Forest Service website. Other comments had not yet been released.

A group of several organizations, among them the Courage Campaign Institute and The Story of Stuff Project, submitted a petition that they said was signed by 280,355 people demanding the agency carry out a “thorough and unbiased” environmental impact review before considering any request by Nestle to continue drawing water from its wells in the forest. The environmental groups argue that taking the water threatens sensitive habitat along Strawberry Creek, where the flow has dwindled during the drought.

“Please demonstrate that the Forest Service takes public forest protection seriously by shutting off Nestle’s operations today,” the groups said in the petition.

Nestle piped 36 million gallons of water from the mountains near San Bernardino last year to produce Arrowhead brand bottled water. The Forest Service does not collect fees for the water. It has been charging Nestle an annual permit fee of $524 per year.

The Forest Service began a review of the permit after a Desert Sun investigation last year revealed that Nestle has been operating in the national forest using a permit that lists 1988 as the expiration date. Documents obtained by The Desert Sun revealed that in the 1990s and early 2000s, there were discussions about Nestle’s permit but that officials failed to follow through on plans for a permit review that would have involved assessing the environmental impacts of drawing water from the national forest.

Gene Zimmerman, the forest supervisor who was in charge at the time, retired in 2005 and has since done paid consulting work for Nestle.

READ MORE: Bottling water without scrutiny

In explaining the nearly three decades of inaction on the permit, Forest Service officials have cited a heavy workload of other priorities, wildfires and floods, a tight budget and limited staffing.

Nestle, based in Vevey, Switzerland, is the world's largest food and beverage company, and Nestle Waters North America runs five bottling plants in California. The company said in a recent statement that it is pleased the permit renewal process is underway and “we look forward to working with the Forest Service to move the permit process forward.”

The company’s water infrastructure at Arrowhead Springs has been authorized under various permits since 1929, according to the Forest Service. Nestle’s current permit was issued to predecessor Arrowhead Puritas Waters, Inc., in 1978 for the purpose of maintaining its water pipelines, horizontal wells and water collection tunnels.

Jane Lazgin, director of media and corporate communications for Nestle Waters North America, said the company has submitted comments to the Forest Service. Those comments, however, have yet to be publicly released.

Joseph K. Doss, president and CEO of the International Bottled Water Association, which represents the industry, said in a letter that the Forest Service’s proposal, as it stands, “seeks to regulate the use of this company’s senior water rights rather than the (right-of-way) granting transmission rights for a four-inch stainless steel pipeline.”

The industry group expressed concern about a proposed management plan that would require Nestle to modify its operations if monitoring showed that the extraction of water was affecting the flow of surface water. It said the Forest Service’s approach in reissuing the special-use permit “sets an extraordinary precedent that threatens to undermine the security and stability of state water rights systems nationwide — particularly in the West.”

Forest Service officials have said they are following the proper procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act. They have said Nestle’s 1978 permit remains in effect until they decide on the renewal application.

READ MORE: Review of Nestle water permit neglected for decades

The bottled water company CG Roxane LLC, which produces Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring Water and is a competitor of Nestle, also submitted a letter. The company said it is seriously concerned that the Forest Service’s proposal “will undermine California’s well-established property and water rights system.”

In response to questions about water rights, Lazgin has said “there are validly recorded water rights and demonstrated continuous use of those water rights since the late 1800’s, through Nestle and its predecessors.”

In comments on behalf of California’s State Water Resources Control Board, Senior Water Resource Control Engineer Victor Vasquez said the “basis of right” hasn’t been clearly defined in the Forest Service documents and that the national forest should require Nestle “to identify its basis of right” – the type of water right being exercised.

Nestle has said its operation isn't causing any harm in the forest and the company monitors the environment at the springs it uses. Recently, Nestle Waters has been promoting its stance through an advertising campaign in social media, newspapers and billboards in Southern California, showing photos of the mountains that are the source of Arrowhead bottled water with the slogan “Respecting nature is in our nature.”

The three groups that are suing the Forest Service over the permit — the Courage Campaign Institute, The Story of Stuff Project and the Center for Biological Diversity — say continuing to bottle water from the national forest threatens rare species such as southwestern willow flycatchers, California spotted owls and mountain yellow-legged frogs.

“Nestle doesn’t have a valid permit and they should stop taking water,” said Michael O’Heaney, executive director of The Story of Stuff Project.

READ MORE: U.S. Forest Service sued over Nestle permit

Ileene Anderson and Lisa Belenky of the Center for Biological Diversity said in a 28-page letter that the Forest Service’s “proposal to issue the permit first and undertake the needed studies later, while water extraction continues, is fundamentally flawed and unlawful.”

They said that while the proposal does include environmental studies, the approach is flawed because the agency wouldn’t halt water diversions during the study period – which would allow researchers to observe the differences in the creek between when the water is being diverted and when it isn’t.

In many of the letters, people called for the Forest Service not to grant Nestle a permit or to halt the bottling operation. Some of the letters were just a few sentences long. Jamie Patterson of Los Angeles, for instance, wrote: “That is even up for debate is disgusting, I SERIOUSLY object to NESTLE taking California's water during the drought.”

Charles Frye of Redlands said the Forest Service has shown negligence in allowing the taking of water to continue unchecked.

“It is morally wrong and fundamentally in opposition to the U.S. Forest Service's... mission and motto to provide free water (to) a foreign-owned company,” Frye wrote.

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Nearby in San Bernardino, customers of the city’s water department pay a rate of $1.15 per 100 cubic feet, or 748 gallons. If Nestle were charged that rate for the 36 million gallons drawn from the forest last year, it would have paid more than $55,000.

Forest Service officials have said a permit fee would be set once a decision is made on whether to issue a new permit.

Under the current proposal, the five-year permit would not set a limit on the volume of water that could be extracted from the national forest.

Ian James writes about water and the environment for The Desert Sun. Email: ian.james@desertsun.com. Twitter: @TDSIanJames.

READ MORE: Nestle bottled water opponents grill Forest Service