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SELLER BEWARE
From THE MONTPELIER BRIDGE April 17 2008
By Miriam Hansen
Almost a year ago, I wrote an article about Daniel Antonovich’s Montpelier Springs Water Company, his plan to bottle water from the spring at the top of North Street, and the controversy surrounding his plan. In his presentation to Montpelier City Council last May, Antonovich projected a 12 month timeline to obtain all required permits.
Eleven months have gone by. No permit applications have yet been filed. The shed housing the spring has been repaired. Local consultant Tom Brazier has replaced Steve Kerr as Project Director. Brazier also lost his long-held seat on the East Montpelier select board at this year’s town meeting. In addition, East Montpelier residents overwhelmingly passed a resolution to impose a three year prohibition on “withdrawing water from the Town in any amount exceeding 10,000 gallons per day.” It passed on a voice vote.
I live about a half mile from the spring. When I first heard about the project I didn’t know how I felt. My father was a man who saw business opportunity wherever he looked. I thought Mr. Antonovich might be such a man. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Over time, a number of events including a meeting I had with Mr. Antonovich at that time have clarified my thoughts about this project. Last month, when The Bridge asked me to write an article about the upcoming moratorium vote, I declined. I asked them to assign another reporter. I no longer felt neutral.
Thursday April 10th, fifteen of us, all but two East Montpelier residents, showed up at U-32 to begin the task of gathering information regarding the impact of water withdrawals on the citizens and natural resources of the town. We went around the room identifying ourselves and the reasons we had for being there. With the exception of Kim Watson, who was there as a representative of the East Montpelier Planning Commission, everyone’s reasons reflected uneasiness about two ideas; the idea of removing water from its watershed and the idea of treating water as a commodity.
Montpelier resident K.C. Whiteley said she felt water is the critical issue for the future of the world. Rich Williams from Barre said that even though we may have plenty of water in this area right now that may not always be true. He spoke of conditions in parts of Bolivia where residents are only entitled to use water two hours per day.
Ginny Callan, the meeting’s facilitator, said she works for a group that provides small grants around New England and that more and more communities faced with large water bottling proposals are coming to her group for help. She said, “I’m concerned about that.”
Leanne Ponder, who lives downhill from the spring, said things are drastically different now because of global warming, that, “in Georgia, land of water moccasins and alligators, cities are down to five percent of their water resources.”
Ponder’s partner Tim Jennings, said that the corporate ethic dictates loyalty to the corporation over the public good. Referring to Antonovich’s reported assertions that his company will never be sold, Jennings shook his head, repeating, “Of course he’ll sell.”
Delia Robinson struck a chord when she stated, “I want to know what we have before we get rid of it. I don’t want us to get in a pickle when the multi-nationals come in.”
When Tom Brazier arrived a little late, our focus quickly shifted to him. We peppered him with questions ranging from the proposed route of the pipeline to right of ways to studies on the variability of the spring’s flow. We were hungry for information and as long as we didn’t touch on finances, Brazier readily answered all our questions.
Brazier assured us there will be no pumping. The spring’s water will be siphoned. He spoke of the spring almost reverently, as “the largest spring resource I’ve ever seen,” stressing that “its temperature never varies by more than a few degrees, indicating that it must come from a very deep bedrock source.” He also said that when the plant is built, people would be able to come and fill their jugs for free just as they had when the pipe ran down North Street. It took a while for us to turn our attention back to volunteering for various fact gathering committees in our assorted study areas.
I wondered about the shift in conversation. With Canadian author and water activist Maude Barlow’s recent talk in my mind, I thought about how here we were a largely lay group of people, looking to educate ourselves on everything from legislation and permitting to scientific definitions and questions of hydrology.
Before Tom Brazier arrived, I had shared a fact with the group that I had not included in the article I wrote last June. Two managers were listed in the draft document Antonovich and Kerr presented to the Montpelier City Council; Jack McGuire, former President of Evian Spring and Sheila Geraghty, former controller of Dannon/Evian Group. Evian is owned by Coca-Cola. Mr. Antonovich asked if I would remove those facts from the article I’d written, claiming McGuire and Geraghty were no longer associated with his project. I wanted to write an even-handed article and agreed to Mr. Antonovich’s fairly insistent request. I mention it here because it contains elements of two key truths.
One element is that this is a business and a costly one to get off the ground. Financial backers, managers and investors will expect returns. They will be here to make profits. A Management Note in the company’s draft document states, “Additions to the management team will consist of key individuals (some of whom cannot yet be publicly named) but who possess substantial experience as top executives in the Bottled Water Industry.”
The other is that water bottling is a global multi-billion dollar industry. Barlow asserts that according to Fortune, annual profits of the water industry now amount to about 40 percent of those of the oil sector and are already substantially higher than the pharmaceutical sector, now close to $1 trillion. There is no way Mr. Antonovich can guarantee that no corporation will ever buy his company. It is precisely what happened to our neighbors in Randolph. A small local water bottling company was sold to a corporation. It is also the cautionary tale Barlow warns of when she speaks about global purchase and sale of water. At her recent talk in Montpelier, Barlow alerted us to the fact that large companies seek out “Ma and Pa operations” as a way to gain a foothold in towns where distrust of corporations is mollified by pledges the company will remain in local hands.
The world has changed. We have polluted so much of the world’s surface water, changed the climate and are extracting water at such a rate that the global demand for fresh water is outpacing its availability. It is April and our hillsides are running with water. Again, I hear Maude Barlow recounting her trip to Newfoundland and the citizens’ response to her dire warnings about water bottling companies looking for freshwater sources. “We’ve naught but water everywhere you look dearie,” they reportedly said. “What are you on about?” Barlow said the question gave her a moment’s pause and then she rejoined, “That’s what they said about the cod.”