U.S. Forest Service Sued Over Allegedly Expired Water Permit

Environmental and public interest groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging that the U.S. Forest Service is letting Nestle Waters North America bottle water in the San Bernardino National Forest on an expired permit.

The groups claimed that the company has broken federal law by continuing its operations on a permit that expired almost 25 years ago. They contend that the Forest Service is breaking its own policies by allowing the bottling operation to continue, as the siphoning of water from already depleted water source is harming local habitats and wildlife.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, calls on the Forest Service to shut down immediately a four-mile pipeline that transports water from Strawberry Creek to a bottling facility. It paid only an annual fee of $524 for the privilege.

According to the The Desert Sun, budget cuts and money needed to manage wildfires have kept the U.S. Forest Service from spending money to re-evaluate its special permits backlog. The environmental groups don’t believe Nestle’s activities would be allowed if the permit-issued in 1978-had been forced to go through a modern environmental review process, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The complainants are asking for the Forest Service to stop permitting water usage for Nestle that uses a pipeline to carry water from eleven wells from San Bernardino National Forest for the objective of bottling.

The application review can take 18 months; however, the agency is looking at interim restrictions limits due to drought in the region.

KESQ reached out to representatives with Nestle and they told us that since they are not directly named in the lawsuit they have no comment. That’s roughly the same amount of water used in one day by 365,000 Californians.