Environmentalists demand bottled water operation in California

A Southern California environmental group is suing the U.S. Forest Service for allowing bottled water company BlueTriton Brands to draw water from the San Bernardino National Forest.

The nonprofit group Save Our Forest Assn. filed the lawsuit in federal court, arguing that the Forest Service violated federal law by allowing the company to continue piping water from wells and water tunnels in the San Bernardino Mountains.

The environmental group said the extraction of water, which is bottled and sold as Arrowhead 100% Mountain Spring Water, has dramatically reduced the flow of Strawberry Creek and is causing significant environmental damage.

The group said the Forest Service has granted the company an “illegal occupation” of public lands and urged the U.S. District Court to order the agency to shut down the pipeline network and remove water diversion infrastructure from the forest. national.

“The U.S. Forest Service must be responsible for protecting our natural resources,” said Hugh Bialecki, president of Save Our Forest Assn.

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The lawsuit is the latest in several attempts by activists to stop the use of spring water from the mountains north of San Bernardino.

After a long investigationstate water regulators determined last year that the company had been illegally diverting much of the water without valid water rights. The State Water Resources Control Board voted to organize the company to stop their “unauthorized diversions” of water from national forest springs. But BlueTriton Brands sued to challenge that decision, arguing that the process was riddled with problems and that the company has a right to the water.

With the state’s order delayed by that lawsuit, Bialecki and other activists decided to challenge the Forest Service’s decision to allow the company to continue operating on national forest lands for the past five years.

The agency said it does not comment on pending litigation and that officials are currently reviewing the company’s most recent permit application.

BlueTriton Brands is not named as a defendant in the case.

The company said in an email that the lawsuit “is baseless and simply restates arguments that advocacy groups have unsuccessfully raised in prior legal proceedings.” BlueTriton “will continue to operate in compliance with all state and federal laws,” the company said.

Environmental activists have campaigned for years for state and federal authorities to shut down the pipeline after a 2015 Desert Sun investigation revealed that the Forest Service was allowing Nestlé to continue extracting water using a permit that listed 1988 as the expiration date.

Subsequently, the Forest Service started a review of Nestlé’s permission, and in 2018 was granted a new permitRevelations about Nestlé taking water from the national forest sparked an outpouring of opposition and sparked several complaints to California regulators questioning the company’s water rights claims, leading the state to… investigation.

BlueTriton Brands took over the bottled water business in 2021 when Nestlé’s North American bottled water division was bought by private equity firm One Rock Capital Partners and investment firm Metropoulos & Co. (This month, BlueTriton and Primo Water Corp. Announced plans to merge and form a new company).

BlueTriton and the company’s previous owners have for years had a federal “special use” permit allowing them to use the pipeline and other water infrastructure in the San Bernardino National Forest.

The Forest Service has been charging an annual fee for land use, currently $2,500 per year. There has been no payment for water.

When the agency issued the permit in 2018, it was for a three-year period with two optional years. The permit expired in August 2023, said Gustavo Bahena, a spokesman for the San Bernardino National Forest.

Forest staff “are in the process of reviewing your most recent request,” Bahena said in an email.

“Because BlueTriton had a timely application for permit renewal, the current permit remains in effect by operation of law under the Administrative Procedures Act until the Forest makes a decision on its new application,” Bahena said. “BlueTriton’s operations on the Forest are governed by its permit, and all terms and conditions of the permit remain in full force and effect.”

In it lawsuit, Save Our Forest Association. maintains that when the Forest Service granted the 2018 permit, it violated several laws, including the Federal Land Policy Management Act, the National Forest Management Act, the Administrative Procedure Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

The group asked the court to vacate the agency’s most recent decision on the permit and to prohibit officials from allowing water diversions until they conduct a new environmental assessment. They urged the court to order the Forest Service to remove, or require the company to remove, the water diversion structures and pipes and restore the Strawberry Canyon area to its natural state.

Steve Loe, a retired biologist who previously worked for the San Bernardino National Forest, said officials have known for decades that water withdrawals have damaged the ecosystem.

“These are public lands and waters, not those of a corporation that uses them for its own benefit at the expense of the public,” Loe said.

The lawsuit says the Forest Service has illegally allowed BlueTriton to continue operating without a “valid” permit.

The company disagreed, saying that “BlueTriton’s current special use permit authorizing its operations in Strawberry Canyon remains in full force and effect.”

A court previously considered a dispute over Nestlé’s permit when other environmental groups demanded in 2015, accusing the Forest Service of violating the law.

a federal judge on the side of the Forest Service In 2016, it ruled that the existing permit, which had an expiration date of 1988, was still valid because the company’s predecessor had applied for a renewal of the permit in 1987 and received no response. Environmental groups subsequently appealed reached an agreement with the government in that legal fight.

In the new lawsuit, environmentalists cite historical records describing the springs and creek nearly a century ago. The records include field notes and reports from W.P. Rowe, a civil engineer who surveyed the watershed beginning in 1929.

Rowe wrote that Strawberry Creek flowed on the southern slope of the San Bernardino Mountains from a “source in a group of springs” and ran through a canyon filled with “alder, sycamore, dogwood, and cedar, together with ferns and thimble trees.”

State water officials said in a statement report the results of your research that the first water-diversion facilities in the Strawberry Creek watershed were built in 1929, and that the system was expanded over the years as additional wells were drilled into the mountainside. The 4-inch steel pipe system collects water flowing from several sites on the steep hillsides above the creek.

Records show about 319 acre-feet, or 104 million gallons, flowed through the company’s pipeline network in 2023. The pipeline reaches a roadside tank, and some of the water is trucked to a bottling plant.

Bialecki and other members of the environmental group said historical records show that before the water was tapped for bottling, the creek was home to thriving riparian habitat. They said stopping the diversions would help endangered bird species such as the southwestern willow flycatcher and Bell’s vireo, as well as other species such as the mountain yellow-legged frog and southern rubber boa.

Water extraction has also reduced flows into the underground basin at the foot of the mountains, contributing to a local water “deficit,” the group said.

blue newt has said It focuses on “responsible and proactive water management.”

“For nearly a decade, in coordination with the U.S. Forest Service, we have hired expert scientific consultants who have studied the Strawberry Canyon area in an unprecedented level of detail,” the company said, adding that the findings were not have shown “no material difference between environmental and habitat conditions in the Strawberry Canyon watershed where we operate and the adjacent canyons where we do not operate.”

Opponents of the company disagree, saying in the lawsuit that the pipelines cause “the removal of virtually all water” from springs and dry up the west fork of the creek in the summer and fall, “causing significant environmental harm.”

Amanda Frye, an activist who has campaigned for years against water extraction from the national forest, said she hopes the lawsuit will bring about change.

“We’ve tried everything,” he said. “It’s ridiculous because it continues.”

“The forest was created to protect the watershed,” he said, “and here they are just allowing it to be destroyed.”