An interesting thing I heard about yesterday that we (well, I) SHOULD have known about: it seems that Nestle/Perrier is attempting to buy a property not 5 miles from Lexington, and intends to build a ONE MILLION square foot production facility for bottling and seasonal storage of water... I'm told that they plan to extract 1.4 million gallons/day, which is approximately the amount that the Maury River Water Authority now withdraws and distributes (they return more than 2/3 of that from waste water).

The usual and predictable: landowners who want to do whatever THEY want with THEIR land, county fiscal personages who love the tax dollars, locals who smell jobs, tree-huggers who want to see no development, etc. etc. Yup, right here in River City, we got commodification. If only we'd known...

Here's the local paper's most recent story:
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Bottled Water Firm Reaches Out To RACC
by Jerry Harris

``It's all about the water.''

That declaration by Jane Lazgin, a communications director for Nestle Waters, summed up the rationale for what her company hopes to accomplish in the next few years. And it would certainly seem to summarize the focus of the members of the Rockbridge Area Conservation Council who met with Lazgin and other company officials here Monday.

But after the unique meeting between the bottled water company looking to locate a plant at Big Spring in Rockbridge County and the conservation group, it might also be said it was all about a very rare display of cooperation between industry and environmental activists. In late February, Nestle Waters, which is the parent company of the bottled water label Deer Park, announced it had purchased an 18-month option on land near Big Spring as a possible site for a spring water bottling plant. Monday, company officials met with representatives of RACC to discuss the water company's plans. More importantly, the company made the unusual overture, by normal industry standards, of trying to forge an informal and formal relationship with not only conservationists but experts in the Rockbridge area.

The immediate result of Monday's meeting was a decision to have key representatives from RACC, likely geologists in the group, serve as an initial liaison with the company's scientists who are studying the viability of the Big Spring as a water source and location for a bottling plant. The company representatives also said they wanted RACC to join with other area groups to form a water advisory group that would continue to work with the company throughout the process. Another salient point made in Monday's meeting, attended by about 20 people, is that Nestle has not made a final decision on locating a plant in Rockbridge County. Bruce Lauerman, who is a natural resources manager with the company, explained that Nestle is studying sites from Roanoke to parts of Pennsylvania to determine the best possible water source. He explained that the company is looking at a variety of criteria, including the quality of the water source, the abundance of the water, available land for a bottling plant, environmental concerns and potential traffic issues.

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An earlier story (late February):

Bottled Water Firm Looking At Site Here
by Jerry Harris

Big Spring might mean big business for the Rockbridge area in the future.

The Rockbridge Partnership, the area's economic development marketing group, yesterday announced that an international bottled water company is purchasing an 18-month option on land near Big Spring as a possible site for a spring water bottling plant.

Deer Park Spring Water Co. will use those 18 months to conduct extensive testing of the area around Big Spring as a potential water source for its product. If those tests and studies show the area to be a viable source for water, then the company will consider the location as a possible plant site. The Big Spring site is one of many in the Appalachian region being considered by Deer Park and no plant could be constructed without approval from the county government first.

``It says good things about a community when a leading international company says it may invest in your community,'' said David Kleppinger, director of the Rockbridge Partnership. He said if the company did build here, it could mean the creation of hundreds of quality, high-paying jobs and said the company would likely bring a substantial increase in annual tax revenues for the county.

However, Kleppinger cautioned that it is too early to say if Deer Park will actually locate here.

``We are definitely competing with other spring sites in other communities in Virginia and other states for these jobs and this investment,'' Kleppinger said.

A spokeswoman for Deer Park said the company will be doing extensive testing and hydrologic studies in and around Big Spring ``to assess the quantity and quality of the waters at Big Spring as well as the hydrology of this section of Rockbridge County.'' The spokeswoman also said the Rockbridge area would become a candidate for the bottling plant only if it was shown the water source at Big Spring met the company's needs ``without any adverse effects to the local environment.''

Even if Deer Park should decide to locate here, there would be some hurdles in zoning and land use regulations. It is possible a special use permit or other requirements will have to be met.

Deer Park was founded in 1873 and is a division of Nestle Waters North America Inc., formerly The Perrier Group. It is the top bottled water company in the U.S. and is based in Greenwich, Conn.

Big Spring is located near the Highland Belle school building at Exit 50 on Interstate 64. The spring has a long history in the area and is reported to have been the site of an attack by native Americans on early settlers of the Rockbridge area in the 1700s.

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and from 5 years ago:

Wells Drying Up In Town Known For Its Water
By DAVID DISHNEAU
AP Business Writer

Jan. 23, 1998

DEER PARK, Md. (AP) - Deer Park, famous for its water, is running dry.

In the tiny western Maryland town where Swiss food conglomerate Nestle SA bottles thousands of gallons of Deer Park spring water daily, some residents' wells are drying up.

The bottling plant isn't to blame. In fact, the company's treasured spring could provide a solution.

"It's kind of ironic. You have an area that has one of the most famous springs and drinking water companies in the United States and people in the town don't have water," said Wendell Beitzel, Garrett County's sanitary district administrator.

Reliable aquifers are scarce in mountainous areas like Garrett County. But everyone in Deer Park knows where the water is: two miles south of town, on the side of Backbone Mountain, where pure, fresh water bubbles out of the ground at the Boiling Spring.

Boiling Spring has been owned since 1993 by Nestle's Perrier Group, which bottles and distributes the Deer Park brand along the East Coast. The brand had sales of $77 million in 1996, about 8 percent of the Perrier Group's total U.S. sales, spokeswoman Jane Lazgin said.

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...and http://www.rockbridgepartnership.org/site_archives/2-27-03-deerpark.html
"It says good things about a community when a leading international company says it may invest $100,000,000 in your community, said David Kleppinger, Executive Director of The Rockbridge Partnership. A spring water bottling plant will have the potential to create hundreds of quality jobs and contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual tax revenues to the County..."

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and for more:
http://hierarchies.org/entity/165 and http://www.bottledwaterweb.com/bott/bt_120deerp.html and http://www.nestle-waters.com/english/home.asp and http://www.saveamericaswater.com/boycott.html