What drought? Nestle plans $35 million plant to bottle water in Phoenix

• Water would be enough to supply 200 Phoenix households per year
• City says it has plenty of water despite regional drought
• Critics say plant sends wrong message to citizens who have been conserving

The world's largest water bottler intends to open a bottling plant in Phoenix, tapping a growing thirst for its product in a desert region stressing over its uncertain water future.

Nestle Waters will spend $35 million to revamp a west Phoenix warehouse into a plant treating city water and selling it as Pure Life brand bottles, city and company officials said.

The plant is projected to fill 264 million half-liter bottles in its first year, or almost 35 million gallons.

That's more than enough water to supply 200 Phoenix households for a year. The plant is expected to create 40-50 jobs.

Phoenix officials say the city tap-water supply is secure for years — maybe decades — despite regional drought, and they're eager to put more of it to use attracting manufacturing jobs like Nestle's.

Others oppose diverting a precious public resource for profit when residents can safely drink it from their taps instead.

"It's certainly ironic to some degree to have a water-bottling plant in one of the driest cities in the country," Sierra Club Arizona director Sandy Bahr said.

"It's not a good direction for Phoenix."

The city's development chief said it's exactly the direction that the city needs. After a population growth-driven boom sputtered through the Great Recession, Phoenix leaders learned to focus as much on making products as on building houses.

Community and Economic Development director Christine Mackay said, "As a country we have really gotten away from manufacturing, and what you'll see over the next decade is Phoenix really taking a stance on manufacturing and bringing manufacturing back."

The city's water chief said there's plenty for both Pure Life and the city's future life.

"We have a great buffer for drought and shortage," Water Services Director Kathryn Sorensen said.

Mixed messages

Therein lies the paradox of Phoenix, and a resulting mixed message.

Phoenix gets about 44 percent of its water from the overused and drought-shrunken Colorado River, through the Central Arizona Project canal. Federal water managers say there's about a 50-50 chance they'll have to at least temporarily reduce Arizona's share starting in 2018. This week state officials started pitching a contingency plan that could see cities splitting that shortage with farmers.

At least for now, though, the city has more water than it needs and has stored excess water underground for later. Phoenix Water Services says the city is using only two-thirds of its sizable Colorado River supply and just half of its even larger Salt River Project supply.

The water department's website simultaneously promotes water conservation as "a Phoenix way of life" and assures that the city won't fully need its river resources "for many years to come."

Water experts at Arizona State University have mixed feelings about the bottling plant.

Kyl Center for Water Policy Director Sarah Porter attended Wednesday's state briefing on the need for all Arizonans to share the pain of a Colorado River shortage. That afternoon she learned of the Nestle plan.

"It's inconsistent with that message," she said, "to be thinking we have plenty of extra water so we're going to permit a water-bottling company. It's not consistent with the spirit of, 'Let's share in the shortage.'"

It also challenges city residents to consider why they should rip out their lawns and save water for the future, if they don't want their water savings sold in bottles.

But, Porter said, if it's manufacturing that Phoenix wants, it's going to take water to make just about anything.

"What difference does it make if they bottle water or Dr Pepper or they're a data center?" she said. "But if we have a limited amount of water — which we do — we should look at the benefits rather than first-come, first-served."

A growing demand

If the water didn't go into bottles it likely would go to a new subdivision, permanently increasing demand, said Dave White, a sustainability professor and director of the university's Decision Center for a Desert City.

The 395,0000-square-foot plant, on 43rd Avenue south of Buckeye Road, was built in 2013 but never occupied. Nestle will invest $35 million in it and employ dozens by next year, the company says, selling mostly to Arizona customers currently buying bottles trucked in from Denver or Southern California.

The company says Phoenix-area demand for bottled water has grown 10 percent in a year, following a nationwide upward trend.

All of this, plus the location in a part of town that needs investment, suggests Phoenix is getting a good business deal, White said.

"The city of Phoenix does have, quote-unquote, excess (water) supply," he said. In the midst of drought, he added, a bottling plant nonetheless presents a symbolic problem.

"Does it send a message to residents that the city or the state is less serious than it should be about its water conservation?" White said.

Bottler defeated in Oregon

Activists elsewhere have railed against water bottlers in general and Nestle in particular. On Tuesday, voters in Hood River County, Oregon, rejected a city-approved Nestle bottling plant after a campaign accused the company of threatening its water security.

"You can't have an economy without water," said Oregon activist Julia DeGraw, who works for the non-profit Food & Water Watch.

She noted that the company kept tapping California springs to bottle its Arrowhead brand throughout California's drought crisis while residents statewide were slashing their use.

A Nestle Waters official said the product isn't about to outstrip supplies, and demand will only increase because of the convenience.

"Even during drought, people want water," Nestle natural resources manager Larry Lawrence said.

Bottling is a minor industrial water consumer elsewhere, he said, as it will be in Phoenix. He noted that a smaller Nestle plant in north Phoenix already has filled workplace water coolers for years.

"Everybody is concerned about water sources in the West," he said. "I've lived in California my whole life. Ultimately, bottled water has a relatively small footprint compared to other bottled beverages, like soda or beer."

Nestle will save on transportation by bottling near Arizona customers, Lawrence said. The company chose Phoenix in part for a water supply that it determined is more sustainable than those in neighboring cities.