Bottled water companies and Anchorage’s water utility engage in feud

 High waters astatine Eklutna Lake are seen connected Aug. 29, 2023. Anchorage’s h2o inferior and a group of bottled h2o companies are successful a conflict complete nan bottlers’ entree to nan utility’s curen works adjacent nan lake. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

An intense, year-long feud betwixt Anchorage’s nationalist h2o inferior and backstage bottled glacier h2o businesses came to a caput this week, pinch a multiday nationalist proceeding earlier authorities inferior regulators.

The city-owned Alaska Water and Wastewater Utility in January asked the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, aliases RCA, for support to trim disconnected nan bottlers’ entree to nan utility’s main curen plant, adjacent Eklutna Lake and downstream of nan Eklutna Glacier. 

That’s wherever nan bottling companies tin presently capable their tanker trucks pinch h2o that’s been disinfected but not yet chlorinated and fluorinated.

AWWU cites risks to information and information from allowing bottlers to entree its curen facility, saying that its infrastructure could beryllium nan tract of a imaginable “physical attack” and that bottlers’ motortruck drivers aren’t “thoroughly vetted.”

The inferior says that bottled h2o businesses could still usage glacier h2o from metropolis hydrants — aft nan inferior has fluorinated and chlorinated it. But nan businesses — including 1 existing bottler and aggregate companies hoping to vessel successful nan early — have vehemently objected, saying that nan summation of nan chemicals would alteration nan water’s sensation and harm their sales.

“A occurrence hydrant pinch chemically treated h2o is simply a business sidesplitting alternative,” David Gottstein, nan president of a startup called Pristine Alaskan Water Co., wrote successful nationalist comments in February.

At nan proceeding Wednesday, Gottstein attacked nan utility’s leaders and said they had taken a “scorched earth, return nary prisoners, Sherman’s march to nan sea” decision-making approach.

In an email, Mark Corsentino, nan utility’s wide manager, said nan connection is “about nan request to protect Anchorage’s semipermanent h2o supply.”

“Putting a organization of astir 300,000 astatine consequence for nan use of 7 customers does not make sense, particularly erstwhile those fewer customers tin get each nan glacier originated h2o elsewhere successful our h2o distribution system,” he said.

Nathaniel Herz welcomes tips at natherz@gmail.com or (907) 793-0312. This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Herz. Subscribe astatine this link.