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- A court has ruled in favor of bottled water company BlueTriton Brands, which sells the Arrowhead brand, overturning an order by California regulators for it to stop taking water from the San Bernardino Mountains.
- The U.S. Forest Service denied the company’s permit application last year and ordered it to shut down the water pipeline and other infrastructure in the San Bernardino National Forest. That decision is also being challenged in court.
The company that sells Arrowhead brand bottled water has won a court ruling overturning a decision by California water regulators, who in 2023 ordered it to stop piping millions of gallons of water from the San Bernardino National Forest.
Fresno County Superior Court Judge Robert Whalen Jr. said in his ruling that the State Water Resources Control Board’s order went “beyond the limits of its delegated authority.”
The board had ordered the company BlueTriton Brands to stop taking much of the water it has been piping from water tunnels and boreholes in the mountains near San Bernardino. The board issued the “cease and desist” order after the agency’s staff conducted an investigation and determined the company was unlawfully diverting water from springs without valid water rights.
The judge found, however, that the state water board “misunderstood and inappropriately applied” state law. He said the legal question was “not about water rights,” and he cited a provision stating the board does not have the authority to regulate groundwater.
A spokesperson for BlueTriton Brands said the company appreciates the court decision in its favor, which affirmed that the state water board “exceeded its authority in issuing a cease and desist order” targeting the company’s operations at Arrowhead Springs in Strawberry Canyon.
The State Water Resources Control Board’s officials are analyzing the court decision, which was issued Monday, said Jackie Carpenter, a spokesperson for the board.
“The State Water Board strongly disagrees with the court’s decision and believes the legal, engineering and hydrogeologic record in this case demonstrates the sound basis for its 2023 decision,” Carpenter said. “The board is assessing whether to appeal the ruling.”
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The company’s bottled water pipeline is also at the center of two other lawsuits pending in U.S. District Court in Riverside.
In one of the cases before District Judge Jesus Bernal, the company is challenging the U.S. Forest Service’s 2024 decision denying its application for a new permit to continue operating its pipeline and other water infrastructure in the national forest. The agency ordered the company to shut down the operation and submit a plan for removing its pipes and equipment from federal land.
In another lawsuit, the local environmental group Save Our Forest Assn. is suing the Forest Service, arguing the agency violated federal laws by allowing the company to continue piping water, and alleging that the removal of water has dramatically reduced the flow of Strawberry Creek and is causing significant environmental harm.
The company has denied that its use of water is harming the environment and has argued that it should be allowed to continue using water from the national forest.
Rachel Doughty, a lawyer for Save Our Forest Assn., said the Forest Service is correct in seeking to deny the company’s permit.
“I hope there is water in the creek as soon as possible,” Doughty said. “That’s the objective, is that the water remains on the land for the benefit of the public on public lands.”
If the Forest Service’s decision stands, it would prevent the company from using the namesake source of its brand Arrowhead 100% Mountain Spring Water.
The Forest Service told bottled water company BlueTriton Brands to stop piping water out of a California national forest. The company is suing to challenge the decision.
The springs in the mountains north of San Bernardino, which have been a source for bottled water for generations, are named after an arrowhead-shaped natural rock formation on the mountainside.
A system of 4-inch steel pipes collects water that flows by gravity from various sites on the steep mountainside above the creek. Records show about 319 acre-feet, or 104 million gallons, flowed through the company’s network of pipes in 2023, filling a roadside tank where trucks pick up water and haul it to a bottling plant.
State officials have said that the first facilities to divert water in the Strawberry Creek watershed were built in 1929, and the system expanded over the years as additional boreholes were drilled into the mountainside.
The company has for years had a federal “special-use” permit allowing it to use its pipeline and other water infrastructure in the national forest. The Forest Service has been charging a permit fee of $2,500 per year. There has been no charge for the water.
Controversy over the issue erupted when the Desert Sun reported in 2015 that the Forest Service was allowing Nestle, which then ran the operation, to siphon water using a permit that listed 1988 as the expiration date.
The Forest Service then began a review of the permit, and in 2018 granted a new permit for up to five years. The revelations about Nestle piping water from the forest sparked an outpouring of opposition and prompted several complaints to California regulators questioning the company’s water rights claims, which led to the state investigation.
BlueTriton took over the pipeline operation in 2021 when Nestle’s North American bottled water division was purchased by private-equity firm One Rock Capital Partners and investment firm Metropoulos & Co.
Last year, BlueTriton merged with Primo Water Corp. to form a new company called Primo Brands Corp., which has dual corporate headquarters in Tampa, Fla., and Stamford, Conn.
The company says that in addition to the site in the San Bernardino National Forest, Arrowhead bottled water is sourced from various other spring sites in Northern and Southern California, as well as one spring in Colorado and another in British Columbia, Canada.
