Prior history suggests the company simply can’t be trusted – something they demonstrated here again when they were caught foisting a grossly overstated economic benefits documents on the county.

Good luck.

Yes, early in the 1041 review the need for the project was analyzed, as well as alternatives to the project. Obviously, Chaffee County has no great need for bottled water.

There is an alternative that was not considered seriously. The Nestle bottling plant in Denver can simply buy 65 million gallons of additional Denver water per year, and bottle it as Pure Life brand-as they presently do. (They could not call it spring water.) This would eliminate impacts to wetlands, traffic, pumping water through 5 miles of plastic pipe using 150,000 kilowatt/hours of electricity per year, then trucking it to Denver with over 600,000 gallons of diesel fuel per year.

Perhaps the most significant part of the last public comment meeting on May 21 was rather late at night when Commissioner Tim Glenn was asking Bruce Lauerman and high $$ water lawyer Steve Sims about the Conservation Easement tossed in at the last minute . Bruce said it would have to meet their business needs, such as more pumping. Steve, without pausing, gave the example of increasing pumping to 300 AF/year. Sims is an elite Colorado “Super Lawyer”. He also does water law for Aurora, who would lease the augmentation water . Lawyers like Sims do not make random statements without basis; they must know their client’s plans to be effective.

An increase to 300 acre-feet/year would step up the truck traffic from 50 truck trips/day to 75. How about leasing more Aurora water and going to 400 AF/year, yielding a clean number of 100 truck trips/day??

Nestle says they want to be a “Good Neighbor”. They endlessly label their project “sustainable”. Do you really believe this P. R. ?

So far Nestle has tied up our Board of Commissioners, and planning staff for months with this ever-changing, “lets make a deal” suck-n-truck scheme. Our board and very able planning staff should instead be devoting this time to considering the needs of citizens with long-term strategic planing.