Concerns over the proposed water bottling plant in Creston are justified based on threats to water quality, water availability, and water and land use.
Although we live above a large aquifer, our knowledge of how this system works is incomplete. Atop the deep aquifer are intermediate and shallow aquifers that flow west from the Swan Mountains, feeding pothole lakes in the east valley and arising as artesian springs along the Flathead River, providing water for agriculture and numerous ecologically important wetlands. At 222 feet, Mr. Weaver’s well may not be deep enough to penetrate the deep aquifer. In a shallow aquifer, the proposed appropriation could have devastating impacts, drying up springs and wetlands, lowering lakes, and harming the wells of thousands of people.
The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation has accepted Mr. Weaver’s hydrology report with no attempt to verify his claims, despite obvious deficiencies of which there are too many to list here. DNRC has dismissed claims that there could be effects on availability by noting that local irrigators take similar amounts of water. This claim is disingenuous; irrigators only pump intermittently from very deep wells about three months of the year and much of that water goes back into the ground. Mr. Weaver intends to permanently remove huge volumes of water year-round. Even in the deep aquifer, this could have adverse effects on wells within a large radius of the bottling plant.
Mr. Weaver intends to manufacture 1.22 billion plastic bottles per year on site and a large amount of the appropriated water is for rinsing these bottles. There has been no review of what this rinse water will contain and the effluent cannot be treated on-site in the proposed system. With all the past effort expended to protect our watershed from pollution, it seems appropriate to take a hard look at this aspect of the project.
Mr. Weaver is building a large factory with lights, noise, dust, and up to 160 trucks per day year-round, in a quiet, agricultural community. Mr. Weaver’s neighbors will suffer diminished quality of life, lost income, and lost property value with no recourse. Our county growth policy was intended to avert these kinds of catastrophes.
Finally, there are statewide implications as we consider how, as Montanans, we want to use our water. Mr. Weaver is a retired mortician from Beaumont, California. He understands the value of our water. Montana law states that we can use the water, not own it, yet Mr. Weaver’s proposal clearly lays out his intention to ship our water out of state. The DNRC seems to have completely ignored this aspect of the project. DNRC owes the people of Montana a thorough evaluation of this project and we, as Montanans, need to make some wise decisions about our water in a drying future.
John Waller
Creston