Bottled water companies and Anchorage’s water utility engage in feud

By Nathaniel Herz, Northern Journal September 20, 2024
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Erosion along the shore of Eklutna Lake is seen on Aug. 29, 2023, at a spot near the trailhead. A $234,000 project will shore up eroded sections of the 13-mile trail that skirts the glacier-fed lake. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
High waters at Eklutna Lake are seen on Aug. 29, 2023. Anchorage’s water utility and a group of bottled water companies are in a dispute over the bottlers’ access to the utility’s treatment plant near the lake. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

An intense, year-long feud between Anchorage’s public water utility and private bottled glacier water businesses came to a head this week, with a multiday public hearing before state utility regulators.

The city-owned Alaska Water and Wastewater Utility in January asked the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, or RCA, for permission to cut off the bottlers’ access to the utility’s main treatment plant, near Eklutna Lake and downstream of the Eklutna Glacier.

That’s where the bottling companies can currently fill their tanker trucks with water that’s been disinfected but not yet chlorinated and fluorinated.

AWWU cites risks to safety and security from allowing bottlers to access its treatment facility, saying that its infrastructure could be the site of a possible “physical attack” and that bottlers’ truck drivers aren’t “thoroughly vetted.”

The utility says that bottled water businesses could still use glacier water from city hydrants — after the utility has fluorinated and chlorinated it. But the businesses — including one existing bottler and multiple companies hoping to bottle in the future — have vehemently objected, saying that the addition of the chemicals would change the water’s taste and damage their sales.

“A fire hydrant with chemically treated water is a business killing alternative,” David Gottstein, the president of a startup called Pristine Alaskan Water Co., wrote in public comments in February.

At the hearing Wednesday, Gottstein attacked the utility’s leaders and said they had taken a “scorched earth, take no prisoners, Sherman’s march to the sea” decision-making approach.

In an email, Mark Corsentino, the utility’s general manager, said the proposal is “about the need to protect Anchorage’s long-term water supply.”

“Putting a community of nearly 300,000 at risk for the benefit of seven customers does not make sense, especially when those few customers can get all the glacier sourced water elsewhere in our water distribution system,” he said.

Nathaniel Herz welcomes tips at [email protected] or (907) 793-0312. This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Herz. Subscribe at this link.