28 April 2016

Water For Flathead’s Future announces 10 May public meeting

Water for [the] Flathead’s Future, the new organization opposing the water bottling plant proposed near Egan Slough, will hold its first membership meeting on Tuesday, 10 May, 1800–2000, in the basement meeting room at Sykes in Kalispell. The room can hold 220, so spread the word and bring your friends. More information is available on WFFF’s website.

The application of Creston residents Lew and Larel Weaver, owners of the Montana Artesian Water Company, for the right to pump 700 acre-feet of water from a 220-foot-deep well tapping the deep aquifer was approved by Montana’s Department of Natural Resources earlier this year. Numerous objections to the approval have been filed, initiating a review process that could stretch out for years.

The Weavers defended their project in a letter published in today’s Flathead Beacon.

This dispute will be one of the most complex water rights and water quality issues in the Flathead’s history, and may become one of the most bitter. It involves not just whether a water right was granted properly, but whether shipping bottled water out of state violates Montana’s statutes governing the export of water. Even if the water right passes legal muster, there are serious questions concerning the local impacts of the bottling plant.

Is bottled water an intrinsically evil product? Some opponents of the bottling plant think so. As I explained in my 12 April post, Of aquifers, bottles, and lawyers, I do not. Nor do I believe that plastic containers are intrinsically evil. Given the intensity of the debate over the water right and the proposed bottling plant, concerns about bottled water and plastic bottles inevitably will be voiced, probably clouding rather than clarifying the discussion.