It’s Official: Crystal Geyser Won’t Be Bottling and Selling Mt. Shasta’s Crystal-Clear Water

In 2013, Crystal Geyser purchased a 145,000-square-foot facility just outside Mount Shasta with the hopes of bottling and selling the mountain’s crystal-clear water. This week, following seven years of protests from local activists and members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, the company announced it would be pulling out of its Mount Shasta plant.

It was a massive victory for local environmentalists and has sweeping economic implications for the region.

The opposition to the bottling plant included the concerns over its possible local water depletion, pollution and noise. The protests were mostly organized by “We Advocate Thorough Environmental Review,” otherwise known as WATER. The group challenged Crystal Geyser’s “fatally flawed” Environmental Impact Report (EIP) and continuously squared off against the company in court. The massive water company eventually gave up.

Bottling plant just outside Mount Shasta

“This is really good news … that we’ve been able to successfully defend our neighborhood from inappropriate development,” said Bruce Hillman, a spokesperson for WATER, to Mt Shasta News.

Through the long process of reviewing the EIP, Crystal Geyser was met with numerous court appeals, opting to sell its real estate and move on from the area instead of continued litigation.

“The county Superior Court affirmed that the project had undergone a thorough and complete environmental review, ruling twice in our favor; yet appeals were filed and are currently in the appellate court,” said Crystal Geyser in a statement.

The news brings with it significant economic implications as it remains unknown who will purchase the building. It was previously used by Dannon and Coca-Cola, and has brought plenty of jobs to the area in the past.

“It’s unfortunate that an asset like this, which used to be a water bottling plant, could not get up and running despite a pretty lengthy process,” said District 2 Siskiyou County Supervisor Ed Valenzuela. “It cost a lot of time and money, for no gain.”

Crystal Geyser has been paying roughly $400,000 in Siskiyou County property taxes each year. The building was purchased it for $5.3 million in 2013 and is currently listed at a price of $8 million.

It remains to be seen who will occupy the bottling plant in the future. But they better be ready to deal with the local activists in Mount Shasta.

Active NorCal

Telling the Stories of Northern California

4 Comments

  1. I assume we will see zero complaining about low wages, unemployment, and economic stagnation from anyone in the Mt Shasta area. Not that I’m siding with water bottling at all but this is too far. NIMBY blight.

  2. A huge win. Bottled water is one of the biggest offenders of groundwater depletion and plastic waste. These companies should be forced to completely leave the state of California. We are suffering from historic drought and the desertification of the state. To allow additional water harvesting amounts to gross negligence of our most precious resource.

  3. Why are people so delusional as to think drinking water is a bad use of a great natural resource, jobs are a good thing the taxes paid support community’s environmentalists have this argument all wrong.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top button