Future of bottled water plant uncertain
Ted Ferrier, who represents Mountain Spring bottled water, addressed the Florence city council Monday to update members on the progress of the proposed water bottling plant in the city. Ferrier's company first expressed an interest in bottling water from the Florence spring early last year. At that time, Ferrier's company was hoping to build a bottling plant, buy spring water from the city, and ship it out as a bottled product.
The only wrinkle Ferrier could see in the plan when he addressed the council in early March, was the length of the lease the city had with land owner Charles DeForest. The city's lease had less than 20 years remaining and Ferrier's company felt that amount of time was not sufficient to its needs.
Currently, the problems facing Ferrier's company and the city are more complex, although Ferrier assured the council his company is still interested in Florence spring water.
At the forefront of the complications is the International Bottling Association. Certain standards have to be met to achieve the IBA's stamp of approval. "It doesn't matter what the state of Kansas, the KDHE, or the EPA say about the quality of water in Florence," said Ferrier, "the water absolutely must meet the standards of the IBA or there will be no bottling plant in Florence."
The IBA uses only a distillation process on natural spring water. It does not use chlorine to clean impurities from the water as cities do.
According to Ferrier, the preferred method is a process called ozination. The process turns bromides, which occur naturally in water, into bromades which are acceptable in drinking water.
However, bromades are only acceptable in bottled water at 10 parts per billion. The levels present in the Florence spring water are too high to meet the bottled water standard and without a method of reducing the count, the water will not meet IBA standards.
Ferrier and city superintendent, Stuart Funk, have secured water samples and sent them to a laboratory in Ohio for a "source water analysis." Ferrier said this test had never been run on the spring and because of the dry weather, it was the best time to take samples and have them analyzed.
Ferrier noted that the bromide distillation problem was not unique to Florence. "It is a problem in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Maryland," he said. "The industry needs to find a way to disinfect without the resulting high bromade counts." Ferrier felt the industry was on track with several new proposals to fix the problem.
A second snag, less troublesome than the bromide problem, is that the bottling company will not be paying the city for the water it uses. "Initially the plan would have benefited the city three ways," said Ferrier. "We planned to build a plant and provide employment to area people, the plant would benefit the city's tax base, and we would have been paying the city for water for many years to come."
"The first two parts of the plan are still a go. Florence is a good source of labor and we would provide jobs, and still be in the tax base."
Ferrier explained that once the water enters the city's water lines, it can no longer be classified as spring water. "We won't be able to use your transmission line or filtration system," he said. "We will have to have our own lines and we will then be dealing with the DeForest interests and state water resources."
"Mountain Spring simply will not deviate from the spring water model," he added. "The water cannot be commercial or community water. Once it enters your system, your disinfection process renders it useless as spring water."
He added that installing water lines and a filtration system were not part of the original scenario, but that any problems in that area would be secondary to the problem of the bromade levels.
"We aren't out of the game, yet. We are hopeful that the project can go forward. It just isn't going forward as easily or as quickly as we had originally hoped," Ferrier said.
He promised to return to the council with more information as it becomes available.
In other business, the council opened bids for the demolition of the building at 509 N. Main. The project was given to Grosse Construction of Peabody with a low bid of $1,800 with the provision that the city pay Stutzman Refuse for the rent and hauling fees on dumpsters for the debris.
Employee wages were reviewed. The council approved wage increases of 3 to 5 per cent for all employees except James Parmley who will get an automatic wage increase when he finishes his police training and becomes a full time officer.
The council approved a second order for new tires for the trash truck when Funk told them the ones he ordered earlier would be back ordered until June.
The group heard from Sara Cope, new chairman of the Florence Economic Development committee, approved Mayor Jeanie Meirowsky's appointment of Howard Kahler and Patty Williams to the Marion County Emergency advisory board, and presented Ann Brenzikofer and Dianne Burnett with new nameplates.
