ANACORTES, Wash. (AP) — Plans to build a controversial water bottling plant in Anacortes are unraveling because the company planning the project has backed out.
KUOW reports the city signed a deal three years ago to sell five million gallons of Skagit River water a day for the next 50 years to a company called Tethys.
The proposal attracted debate in the community. Some residents feared the company would transfer its water rights to a larger company like Coca-Cola or Nestle and that it wouldn't create jobs.
Tethys had planned to build the largest beverage bottling plant in the country.
One city council member, who opposed the water bottling project, says he wants to make sure the city does not transfer the water rights to another company. But Anacortes Mayor Dean Maxwell says deal is dead.
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Information from: KUOW-FM, http://www.kuow.org/