Nestle must pay up before commissioners render decision

UPDATE June 17: Today, the Citizen received copies of Nestle invoices from the county. The total Nestle owes the county through June 12 is $128,920.30. The county estimates that additional charges for county work through the permit decision will total $25,800. Expected first-year startup costs, if the commissioners approve the project, are estimated to total $41,000. The commissioners scheduled the next Nestle hearing on July 1.

Posted June 16: If you want a decision, you have to pay your bill first.

That was in essence what the Chaffee Board of County Commissioners told representatives of Nestle Waters North America today in what amounted to the shortest and most anti-climactic meeting of the seven-month-long drama of public hearings on Nestle Waters North America’s water harvesting proposal.

As part of the application review process for any project in Chaffee County, developers must pay all associated costs for consultants and other administrative expenses associated with processing the request. In Nestle’s case, as of late April, those expenses totaled upwards of $114,000.

At today’s hearing, the commissioners told Nestle that they would begin the deliberative phase of the hearing only after Nestle has paid in full for the charges the county has incurred in processing one of the most technical and controversial cases in at least the past decade, if not ever.

Nestle is seeking the necessary county approvals to harvest 65 million gallons of water from a spring on ranch land at the mouth of Brown’s Canyon, pipe that water four miles to a loading station in Johnson Village, where it will then be trucked two hours to Denver for bottling and sales as Arrowhead bottled water.