DENVER — In rural Chaffee County, Colo., one of the world's largest beverage companies has discovered water it deems fit for a bottle: clean and crisp, with the mountain spring flavor people are willing to pay for.
Nestle Waters North America wants to tap an aquifer feeding a pair of springs near Salida, southwest of Colorado Springs, and draw 65 million gallons of water per year to bottle and sell under its Arrowhead brand.
But many mountain residents say Nestle should go bottle someone else's water.
"I'm afraid they will pump and pump until they suck it dry," said Michele Riggio, a Salida physical therapist who has led the opposition.
The conflict is the latest skirmish in an ongoing battle against the bottled water industry, which has enjoyed strong growth over the last decade thanks to the beverage's popularity among consumers who eschew tap water and soft drinks.
As companies like Nestle, which operates 50 spring sites around the country, seek to acquire new water sources, communities have increasingly resisted, said Noah Hall, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit and an expert in water law.
"By the nature of its business -- taking water out of the ground and putting it in a bottle and selling it -- Nestle is a lightning rod for opposition wherever they go," Hall said, citing conflicts in Florida, Maine, New Hampshire, Washington and California.
Such conflicts seem to have more to do with larger social concerns than the specific projects, said Bruce Lauerman, a natural resources manager for Nestle, a division of the Switzerland-based company.
"It's more a debate about corporations, who owns the water, and what is the best and highest use of water," he said.
Because a good supply of spring water isn't easy to come by, Nestle and other companies are reluctant to let one go without a fight, Hall said. Such conflicts usually wind up in court, where he said judges rarely denied water companies the right to at least some water.
"The opponents don't usually come away satisfied. They want to run them out of town, and that almost never happens," Hall said.
In Chaffee County, with a population of about 17,000, Nestle's research led it several years ago to the Ruby Mountain and Bighorn springs, Lauerman said.
The company wanted a local source for water it sells in the western U.S. -- a product that Nestle has been trucking from California to other states.
