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Title: Private greed blocks democratic process in wine country water bottling dispute.
My neighbors and I, living on Worden Hill, near Dundee, received notices from Yamhill County that Tori Mor Vineyard and Water, LLC, had applied for a conditional use permit to "extract and bottle water" (quote from county code). A number of us have wells that go temporarily dry if we run too much water at one time so we believe no commercial entity should be allowed to pump from our aquifers and sell the water for its own private profit. We appealed the application and got a public hearing scheduled. We worked hard getting petitions signed, gathering information and submitting this all to the county planning department. The hearing room was filling to overflowing with my neighbors all opposed to the county issuing the permit. The Tori Mor lawyer asked to "continue" the hearing, that is, postpone it for a month or more. No testimony was allowed except for two of us who were not able to attend the next scheduled hearing. So we all went home. A few days before the next scheduled hearing we all received letters from Yamhill County Planning Department that Tori Mor had withdrawn the request for "extraction and bottling of water". You would think that meant Tori Mor had decided not to bottle and sell our water. No! The next issue of the McMinnville News Register newspaper had an article headlined "Tori Mor given green light on water bottling". The rest of the story: Tori Mor's attorney had gone to the Yamhill Planning Department and argued that since Tori Mor was only extracting the water on the property but was bottling it at another location, the requirement for a conditional use permit did not apply and therefore Tori Mor should be allowed to proceed without any regulation. Under pressure the county attorney decided to accept the argument. Thus a commercial entity willing to spend money for good legal counsel was able to circumvent the democratic conditional use application process and was allowed to remove and export water from our aquifers even though all the local people were opposed. Well I suppose we could lawyer up and go to court, but frankly I would be afraid that we would be defeated by some clever legal argument that hinged on some minor technicality that had nothing to do with the main question. I have compared the price of the Tori Mor bottled water with that of other bottled water. Assuming that the cost of bottling the water is similar across the board, the profits of Tori Mor water are absolutely mind boggling. The Oregon Water Resources Department allows 5000 gallons per day commercial use without a permit. 5000 gallons of bottled water at Tori Mor's price is tens of thousands of dollars. This is a natural for a winery since they already have the marketing network in place. Most of us feel that selling water as a commodity may be legal, but is not ethical, at least it should be of the lowest priority for use.
Signed: Wordenhill

posted 5 years, 1 month ago
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