Bennington hopes a ready supply of spring water will give the town an economic boost.
The town located in southwest Vermont is actively seeking to attract bottling companies to Morgan Spring, which flows out of the Green Mountain National Forest. In a news release, Bennington officials say they want to capitalize on that “liquid asset.”
Morgan Spring generates 2.1 million gallons a day, and it already supplies water to Vermont Pure, a water bottling giant in the Northeast. Bennington boosters believe it can handle another bottling company, since the town’s 16,000 residents use only 10 percent of what officials say is an “ultra-clean water source.”
Vermont Pure, owned by Crystal Rock of New York, has extracted water from Morgan Spring for more than a decade. The company is limited to 100,000 gallons a day and the flow seldom maxes out, according to Stuart Herd, the town manager. Vermont Pure trucks the water to a bottling plant in Halfmoon, N.Y.
Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, supports the idea of expanding the water bottling industry in his hometown.
“I think it’s good,” he said. “Anything that towns can do to earn money — and they have a good product.”
The Vermont Natural Resources Council is concerned about putting a price on water, which the organization considers to be a public resource. Several years ago, the Legislature, at the behest of VNRC, declared groundwater a public trust.
At a rate of .75 cents a gallon, the town makes between $20,000 and $25,000 annually from sales to Vermont Pure.
“It’s been on our minds for a while,” said Kim Greenwood, water program director at VNRC. “Our school of thought is that we want to keep water as public as possible and not have dollars attached to it.”
So far, sales of water from Morgan Spring hasn’t tapped big bucks for the town. At a rate of .75 cents a gallon, the town makes between $20,000 and $25,000 annually from sales to Vermont Pure. The town does not have estimates for how much money it could generate through a deal with another bottling company.
Few Vermont springs are used by water bottling companies. Timothy Raymond, operating chief at the Drinking Water and Groundwater Protection Division at the Agency of Natural Resources, says there are six active companies in the state.
In a 2011 report, the Agency of Natural Resources looked into the environmental impact of withdrawing and transferring groundwater for the purposes of bottling out of the state. The report did not find any adverse effect on the environment with the current levels of extraction. Before the agency re-issues permits to existing water bottling permits, the ANR would require more extensive studies on the effects on drinking water supplies, agricultural use, the groundwater table and surface water recharge. Such research must be undertaken by the applicants, according to Vermont’s Groundwater Withdrawal Reporting and Permitting Rule.
Greenwood says water bottling companies currently extract a very small percent of the groundwater in Vermont. Golf courses, other commercial enterprises and manufacturing plants are responsible for most of the state’s water usage, she said.
Legislation has been introduced for the taxation of water for commercial use. Last year a 0.05 cent per gallon tax on water that is sold to a private entity was in the fee bill that was taken up by the Senate Finance Committee. The tax, however, was not included in the final bill.
VNRC has testified against extraction taxes since the Vermont Blue Ribbon Tax Structure Commission first introduced the idea in 2010. The environmental group is concerned that taxing groundwater — even water extracted for bottling — could lead to the taxation of other water uses, Greenwood said.
“We certainly understand the sentiment that ‘someone’ is making money off a resource that belongs to all of us,” she said. “But there are certain considerations that must be part of our calculations before aggressively jumping right to a tax or royalty.”
VNRC will be releasing a new report on the use of groundwater at the end of September, Greenwood said.
The options for potential developers could include extraction of the water at the spring and at a plant located adjacent to the springs. Town officials want to keep truck traffic in the region to a minimum, and are more interested in companies that want to do the bottling locally. The creation of a water bottling plant, where transportation can be scheduled would be the ideal set up, said Michael Harrington, economic and community manager for the town.
According to the Beverage Marketing Corp., the sales of bottled water in the U.S. grew 7 percent in 2012, and even with public institutions trying to limit the sales of water bottles, the industry is growing.
If the bottling plant is near the springs it could create job opportunities for the town. Vermont Pure has not shown interest in building a plant at the location, and that’s one of the reasons why the town is looking for new bottling companies, Herd said.
“A bottling facility would create jobs,” he said. “And we really don’t want to encourage more truck opportunities, because it’s in a residential area.”
Tim Raymond at ANR doesn’t understand the logic in that. “The water needs to leave the town one way or another,” he said. “So I don’t see much difference in the amount of traffic.”
But he understands that towns are looking to new ways to increase revenue.
“Communities in Vermont have a lot of infrastructure that they have to maintain,” he said. “It’s very expensive, and I’m sympathetic, and I can understand if they want to find new ways to increase revenue that is not raising taxes.”
About a decade ago, Bennington explored the idea of building a water plant, but it was too expensive for the town to undertake, and still is, Herd said. But shortly after welcoming bottlers to town in 2003, Bennington caught the attention of Vermont Pure.
Herrington, who took over the economic and community manager position less than a year ago, has put water extraction on the agenda again. He wants to “continue using this abundance” as long as it doesn’t put the community at risk.
“I’m not for exploiting resources,” he said. “We’re simply looking to take water that already exists and to turn it into something that we can benefit from.”
The environmental impact of filling bottles with water and “trucking it around” is a factor that should be considered, Greenwood said.
“It’s a wasteful way of using water,” she said. “I don’t understand when people choose to open the refrigerator door instead of using the tap,” she said.
According to the Beverage Marketing Corp., the sales of bottled water in the U.S. grew 7 percent in 2012, and even with public institutions trying to limit the sales of water bottles, the industry is growing, said Greenwood.
So far, Bennington has not heard from any potential investors.
“We have been talking about this for a long time,” said Herrington. “But if you don’t put the word out they won’t know were looking.”
