LETTER: Bottling plant too risky for others' water rights

Water is our life blood — to be shared by all of us.

Montana Artesian Water Co. will pump water 24/7 — 710 acre feet/year, year after year — unlike farmers who pump seasonally, which allows the aquifer to recharge.

Water rights do NOT protect against adverse impact — acts of God OR man caused. So, those of us whose wells draw down and/or go dry as a result of the water company’s continuous pumping will have to pay $10,000 to $15,000 to drill new wells. Up to 30 neighboring wells could be impacted initially, including schools’, with estimates of up to 2,000 wells that may be adversely impacted in five years. That’s a lot of new well drilling.

Our homes are our biggest investment — in time, emotion and money. Our property rights are threatened with both the cost of drilling a new well and the subsequent loss of property value.

Furthermore, no one can guarantee that neighboring small lakes — including Egan Slough, which is spring fed and from which several of us have surface water rights — will not draw down and/or dry up, an additional take on our property rights/property values. Not to mention the negative impact on the wildlife, such as the nesting trumpeter swans on Egan Slough, which had six cygnets this spring.

This issue has become a significant financial cost and emotional burden for many of us. Why should the Montana Artesian Water Co. make a tidy profit while the rest of us have to pay for damages done to us by their actions? How is that beneficial? Is that neighborly? Or friendly? Why are company interests put ahead of us ordinary citizens? This is simply not fair.

—Gail A. Watson-Fulsaas, Kalispell