In Weed, CA, population 2,700, a David-and-Goliath story is playing out over bottled water. Residents are suing Roseburg Forest Products, an Oregon-based timber company for monopolizing the town’s drinking water, reports the New York Times. Roseburg owns the forest where a pristine spring surfaces, bringing water from Mount Shasta.
“For the past 50 years, the company charged the city $1 a year for use of water from the Beaughan Spring. As of July, it began charging $97,500 annually. A contract signed this year directs the city to look for alternative sources,” says the Times.
Roseburg already sells some of the water on its property to Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring, which then bottles and ships Weed water as far away as Japan. Residents suspect that Roseburg wants to cash in and sell even more of the resource to Crystal Geyser, which has announced plans to expand its operations.
“The corporate mentality is that they can make more money selling this water to Japan,” said Bob Hall, a former mayor of Weed and current member of the City Council. “We were hooked at the hip with this company for years,” he said of the timber company, which is the biggest private employer in the area. “Now, they are taking advantage of people who can’t defend themselves.”
If the city doesn’t win the case, residents will be forced to dig a new well, estimated at $2 million. Roseburg offered an alternative site for a well on its property. But the area is dangerously close to a former timber treatment facility, which was was designated a SuperFund site in 1986 because of the presence of toxins like arsenic.
In November, residents of Siskiyou County, where Weed is located, will vote on a measure that would force companies to apply for a permit in order to export water. A similar case in Missoula, Montana, ended with the state Supreme Court ruling in August that the city could use eminent domain to take control of its water, which is owned by a private company.
The story in Weed, says the Times, is a clear sign that water is increasingly a high-stakes matter across the West, with farmers, residents and corporations all vying for what little there is.