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The company selling Arrowhead branded bottled water has won a court ruling that overturns a decision by California water regulators.
Fresno County Superior Court Judge Robert Hollen Jr. said in his ruling that the state’s Water Resources Management Board’s order “exceeded the limits of the authorities that were commissioned.”
The board had ordered the Bluetooth brand company to stop consuming much of the water it was piping underwater and from the boreholes in the mountains near San Bernardino. The board determined that after agency staff conducted the investigation, it issued an “Stop and Repeal” order and that the company had decided to illegally divert water from the spring without any valid water rights.
However, the judge found that the state’s water committee “misunderstands and inappropriately applies” state law. He said the legal issue was “not about water rights” and he cited provisions that demonstrate that the board has no authority to regulate groundwater.
A spokesman for Bluetooth Brands said the company is favorably evaluating the court’s decision.
Officials with the state’s Water Resources Management Board are analyzing the court’s decision issued Monday, said board spokesperson Jackie Carpenter.
“The state’s water committee strongly opposes the court’s decision and believes that the legal, engineering and hydrogeological records in this case represent a healthy foundation for the 2023 decision,” Carpenter said. “The board is evaluating whether to appeal the ruling.”
The company’s bottled water pipeline is also at the heart of two other cases pending in the U.S. District Court in Riverside.
In one of the cases before District Judge Jesus Bernal, the company challenged the U.S. Forest Service’s 2024 decision and rejected applications for new permits to continue operating pipelines and other water infrastructure in national forests. The agency ordered the company to close operations and submit plans to remove pipes and equipment from federal land.
In another lawsuit, local environmental groups save our forest assn. It sued the Forest Service and alleges that the agency is violating federal law by allowing the company to continue water plumbing, and that water removal has dramatically reduced the flow of Strawberry Creek, causing serious environmental hazards.
The company denies that water use is damaging the environment and argues that it should be permitted to continue using water from national forests.
Rachel Doughty, an attorney for Save Our Forest Assn, said the Forest Service was right to try to deny the company’s permission.
“I hope that the stream will have water as soon as possible,” Dhoty said. “That’s the purpose: water remains on the land for the benefit of the public land citizens.”
If a Forest Service decision exists, it prevents the company from using the source of the name of the brand Arrowhead 100% Mountain Spring Water.
The mountain spring north of San Bernardino has been a source of bottled water for generations, and is named after the natural rock formations of the arrow-shaped rocks on the mountainside.
The 4-inch steel pipe system collects gravity-flowing water from various locations on steep mountainsides above streams. Records show that in 2023, about 319 acre feet, or 104 million gallons, have passed through the company’s network of pipes, filling roadside tanks where trucks pick up water and carry it to the bottling factory.
State officials say the system has expanded over the years as the first facility to divert water in the Strawberry Creek basin was built in 1929 and additional boreholes were excavated into the mountainside.
For many years, the company has a federal government “special use” permit that allows pipelines and other water infrastructure to be used in national forests. The Forest Service charges a license fee of $2,500 per year. There was no charge in the water.
Controversy broke out in 2015 when the Desert Sun reported that the Forest Service was running Nestlé and allowing water to be sucked up using permits listing 1988 as the expiry date.
The Forest Service then began reviewing the permit and in 2018 they granted the new permit for up to five years. The revelation about Nestlepiping water from the forest caused a pouring of opposition, prompting California regulators to several complaints, questioning the company’s claims of water rights, leading to a state investigation.
Bluetooth is a private equity company, One Rock Capital Partners and investment company Metropoulos & Co., which is home to Nestle’s North American bottled water division. It took over the pipeline business in 2021, which was purchased by.
Last year, Bluetooth merged with Primo Water Corp. to create a new company called Primo Brands Corp., with dual corporate headquarters in Tampa, Florida and Stamford, Connecticut.
In addition to the San Bernardino National Forest site, Arrowhead bottled water is sourced from various spring sites in Northern and Southern California, from the Spring in Colorado and British Columbia, Canada.
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