Anheuser-Busch Plan to Bring Water to Brewery Could Set Precedent

In a move that has potentially far-ranging implications for water use in California, Anheuser-Busch Inc. is preparing a proposal to ship its own water from the Owens Valley to its Van Nuys brewery through the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

The brewer’s plans, which must be approved by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, will be the DWP’s first test of a 1986 California law that requires public utilities to make unused space in their aqueducts available to private water users.

“It could create a precedent,” said Greg James, Inyo County’s counsel and director of the local water department.

Anheuser-Busch is Los Angeles’ second-largest private water user after Union Oil. The brewery consumes about 5 million gallons a day at its Van Nuys plant. Like other private water users in Los Angeles, it buys its water from the DWP.

Under the proposed plan, the brewer would pump the water from the 504-acre Cabin Bar Ranch, which it purchased in 1986, just off California 395 and about 150 miles north of Los Angeles. Although the plan provides for shipping of up to 1 million gallons of water a day, Thomas A. Aldrich, an Anheuser-Busch vice president, said the most that the company would actually ship would be 500,000 gallons a day.

Aldrich said the plan would be used only as a last resort to be implemented if Los Angeles begins a mandatory water-rationing program--now under consideration by the city because of the 4-year-old drought--that would cut the brewery’s water use by 10%.

Aldrich said the plant has managed to cut its water use by about 10% recently, making the likelihood remote that it would have to ship water. But if the brewery did need additional water and weren’t allowed to ship it, it would probably mean laying off some of the brewery’s 1,500 workers, he warned.

Anheuser-Busch, based in St. Louis, is the nation’s largest brewer of beer, and its Van Nuys brewery is one of 12 the company operates.

But there are potential obstacles to the water diversion proposal, including likely opposition in Owens Valley, an area in Inyo County that is about a three-hour drive north of Los Angeles that has fought bitterly over the export of its water south since the turn of the century. “There’s not a lot of confidence in the new export idea,” James said.

Opposition would probably center on environmental concerns, James said. Because of the export of water to Los Angeles, he said, stretches of the Owens River and its tributaries have dried up and fish and vegetation have died. Increased pumping by a private user could add to the damage, he said.

The water-shipment law also contains language that would deny such a plan if it had an adverse impact on the local economy or environment. That provision could give Inyo County the basis to challenge Anheuser-Busch’s proposal if it objects to the plan, James said.

Aldrich said an environmental impact report has been prepared and would soon be presented to the DWP and Inyo County. He said the report accounts for “proper protection of the environment,” including mitigating the impact on wildlife, vegetation and other water sources in the area.

Mitchell Kodama, southern district engineer with the DWP, said the DWP’s main concern in reviewing Anheuser-Busch’s proposal will be whether the plan meets with approval by the Inyo County Board of Supervisors.

“Clearly in this situation the acceptance by the people in Inyo County would be a primary issue,” he said.

Kodama added that the DWP doesn’t want to put its own water supply in jeopardy, which could happen if other private water users follow Anheuser-Busch’s lead. “If there are too many people competing for use of the aqueduct, then it could become a problem,” he said.