Potential water restrictions at Arrowhead Springs Hotel raise concerns over wildfire danger

A dispute between the U.S. Forest Service and the bottler of Arrowhead Water could deprive the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians of millions of gallons of water, compromising the tribe’s ability to fight wildfires around its iconic Arrowhead Springs Hotel.

Blue Triton Brands, which bottles and manufactures Arrowhead 100% Mountain Spring Water, was denied a special-use permit by the federal agency on July 26. The Forest Service ordered the company to stop drawing water from Strawberry Canyon, near the architecturally renowned hotel, and to remove its equipment and infrastructure.

The San Manuel Indians receive a substantial amount of water from Blue Triton’s gravity-fed pipeline. A San Manuel spokesperson said the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District, Cal Fire and the Forest Service all share the tribe’s water supply with the San Manuel Fire Department, and assist each other in battling wildland fires in the foothills and front country areas.

The Forest Service denied the permit request because the company reportedly had refused to provide information in its application on how it was using its water and why its provision of water to San Manuel at Arrowhead Springs increased 111% from December 2023 through May.

Although the Forest Service subsequently modified its order and allowed Blue Triton, formerly Nestle Waters North America Inc., to continue providing water to the tribe for 30 days, that allowance ends on Sept. 2, and local government officials have expressed concern over potential fire danger in letters to San Manuel’s chief intergovernmental affairs officer, Daniel Little.

‘Greatly concerned’

In a letter to Little dated Aug. 1, San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Chair Dawn Rowe said she was “greatly concerned” about a potential loss of water supply to the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians.

“The County depends on the tribe as a key regional partner to assist our efforts in fighting wildfires and responding to natural disasters,” Rowe said. “Without readily available water at the tribe’s Arrowhead Springs property, County firefighting operations for our foothill communities would be severely crippled.”

Rowe noted that two major wildfires already have occurred in July — the Pole Fire in Apple Valley and the Vista Fire north of Rancho Cucamonga. Those blazes burned thousands of acres, required the evacuation of hundreds of residents and cost the county millions of dollars to contain. The Vista Fire was declared 100% contained on Aug. 17.

Rowe was sharp in her letter about the Forest Service’s failure to inform the county of its decision, and said, “The snap decision to cut off water to a community in a dangerous fire-prone area is an obvious hazard to the homes and lives of San Bernardino County residents.”

San Bernardino Mayor Helen Tran expressed similar concerns in a letter to Little dated Aug. 6.

“Arrowhead Springs is ideally situated to assist in wildfire suppression measures that benefit the entire region,” Tran said. “Many fires throughout the history of San Bernardino have quickly swept across our foothills and destroyed entire neighborhoods.”

In October 2003, the arson-caused Old Fire erupted in Waterman Canyon, just off Highway 18, and burned for nine days. It contributed to the deaths of six people, forced the evacuation of 70,000 residents, consumed 91,281 acres, and destroyed 940 residences and more than 300 commercial buildings and other structures. The Old Fire was one of several that burned across the state that year.

San Manuel spokesperson Kenneth Shoji noted that the Old Fire started “just up the road” from the Arrowhead Springs property in 2003 before spreading over the entire area.

Decision challenged

Blue Triton is challenging the Forest Service’s decision in federal court in Washington, D.C. It also is disputing a California State Water Resources Control Board order in September 2023  that Blue Triton stop diverting water from some of its tunnels and boreholes after determining the company was doing so unlawfully. State water regulators, however, did allow Blue Triton to continue delivering water to the tribe and affirmed its water rights.

A spokesperson for Blue Triton said the state water board’s cease-and-desist order from September has been stayed pending its litigation in Fresno Superior Court.

Blue Triton maintains that the company and its predecessors have held rights to the water in the San Bernardino Mountains for more than 125 years, even before the establishment of the San Bernardino National Forest.

Since 1930, Blue Triton and its predecessors have been issued special-use permits by the Forest Service to operate a 4-inch gravity-fed pipeline across roughly four miles of steep mountain terrain to a collection point at the Arrowhead Springs Hotel property now owned by San Manuel. In May 2016, the tribe purchased the 1,900-acre hotel property, which in the 1930s served as a playground for Hollywood’s elite.

In her letter, Rowe said the tribe should continue to receive water through the end of the year, which would give the county Fire Protection District access to the water while the legal issues are being resolved.

Permit denied

In his July 26 letter to Louis Mixon, III, Blue Triton’s senior natural resources manager,  U.S. Forest Service District Ranger Michael Nobles said that for months, Blue Triton indicated it had bottled none of the water it drew from the forest and was providing 94% to 98% of it to San Manuel at Arrowhead Springs.

Nobles said the rate of water Blue Triton provided to the tribe increased from an average of 4.5 million gallons a month in December 2023 to 9.5 million gallons in May, an increase of more than 111%. Yet despite that change in usage, Blue Triton refused to say explain why that was happening in its permit application, asserting it was the tribe’s responsibility.

In a declaration filed on Aug. 13 in U.S. District Court challenging Blue Triton’s lawsuit, Forest Service Supervisor Danelle D. Harrison said that although Blue Triton’s permit indicated it would be bottling its water for retail sale, that had not been the case since November 2023. Instead, the company had diverted all its water to San Manuel at the Arrowhead Springs Hotel.

“If the San Manuel Band require access to National Forest System lands to obtain additional water, they have the same opportunity to apply for a permit as any other member of the public,” Harrison said in her declaration.

Shoji said the increase in water it received from Blue Triton was attributed to a wet winter, and that all water that went unused by the tribe was returned to the creek system.

The Forest Service’s denial came a month after the nonprofit environmental group Save Our Forest Association filed a federal lawsuit against the agency in U.S. District Court in Riverside alleging it was violating federal laws by allowing Blue Triton to draw water from the canyon.

According to the lawsuit, Blue Triton’s special use permit expired in 1988, but the Forest Service allowed the company to continue diverting water, which essentially has caused the Strawberry Creek watershed to dry up to the point it can no longer support fish and has impaired riparian fauna and flora.

Meeting requested

San Manuel said in a statement it has begun ongoing talks with the Forest Service to discuss the “immediate and potentially irreparable harm that this decision will cause to the Arrowhead Springs property” and the ability to fight fires in the area.

The tribe said it could not speculate on the results of pending litigation, but “remains committed to working with federal, state, and local authorities to “ensure this essential resource remains accessible to all regional firefighters.”

Forest Service spokesperson Gustavo Bahena declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.