Moratorium on spring water bottling company fails to pass Greene County Commission

GREENE COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) – Greene County commissioners gathered for a meeting on Monday, and one item discussed was putting a moratorium on a spring water bottling operation managed by a company called Eternal Water.

A natural spring located in Afton is on private property, and the owners have a lease agreement with Eternal Water allowing them to come in and test the water for potential future operations. But, people who live in the area are concerned for the environmental impact and the availability of the spring water for locals in the community.

“Right now, we’re at a county level just trying to create a hold-off until we can get some policy changed,” said George Jennings, who lives down the road from the spring. “The policy that they have now is pretty much geared for runoff and surface water protection.”

Jennings said he wants the policy to prevent big companies from taking local water.

Commissioners at the county meeting heard from three separate parties on the issue, Eternal Water, Premium Water (the current bottling company in Greene County), and Jennings–geared with his concerns for the local community.

Eternal Water stated that in their lease agreement with the property owners, people in the community can still have access to the spring and that any work done when extracting water would be under the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC).

“That information hasn’t returned yet, so we don’t even know, for instance with the regulatory agency of the state that handles these things, whether they’ll be able to continue to do what they’re doing despite our action or inaction to not,” said Greene County Mayor Kevin Morrison.

Lela Ricker, another Greene County resident concerned about Eternal Water’s plans, said she just wants to make sure how they take the water is not going to harm the spring or the wildlife that depend on it.

“They’re proposing that they actually go several feet down into the ground into what we call aquifers, commonly call water tables,” said Ricker. “We have concerns that once they have access to these water tables and begin production, that this could inhibit the flow of the tap water known as the spring water.”

During the meeting, county commissioners voted whether or not to put a moratorium, or temporary stop, on the spring water operation. The commission voted 7 yes and 13 no, therefore the operation will not be paused.

“The waters of Tennessee belong to the State of Tennessee, because most jurisdictions like Greene County and other counties around the state, we don’t employ nor do we have authorization to have our own regulated free agency of the environment,” said Mayor Morrison.

Eternal Water said it would like to open a bottling operation facility in Greeneville in the future, but nothing would be built on the spring causing any harm to the environment.

Once results from the water study they collected and submitted to TDEC comes back, the state department will ultimately tell Eternal Water if it can proceed with the operation and what the guidelines are to keep the spring safe.

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