The Biden administration issued another blow to BlueTriton Brands in its bid to continue tapping tens of millions of gallons of water from the San Bernardino National Forest, sparking a new legal battle as the company seeks to retain rights to tap its marquee water source.
The firm, which owns well-known bottled water brands like Arrowhead and Poland Spring, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to overturn a recent Forest Service decision to bar the company from using federal lands to transport millions of gallons of groundwater annually.
The Forest Service ordered BlueTriton, formerly known as Nestlé Waters North America, to shut down infrastructure that funnels percolating groundwater from its Arrowhead sources in Strawberry Canyon via pipelines located on public lands.
San Bernardino National Forest District Manager Michael Nobles pointed to repeated failures by BlueTrition officials to respond to information requests from the agency, including how the company used 9.5 million gallons of water it tapped in May 2024 but did not actively bottle.
