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Butte Falls plans to sell water By MELISSA MARTIN BUTTE FALLS -- A town long proud of its mountain spring water hopes to soon be selling its surplus, now that Superior Lumber has donated a three-acre site for a bottling plant near Ginger Springs. "We could market it as baby's first water," said Joyce Hailicka, a grant writer and Butte Falls resident. The purity of Ginger Springs water is unmatched, says resident Bill Tucker, a former logger who's now working to make the bottling plant a reality. Every morning public works employee Pete Vorbek drives to the town's reservoirs about a half-mile from the source to take a sample of Ginger Springs water, testing its turbidity and chlorine level. Federal rules required Butte Falls to begin treating its water with chlorine in 1978. "We would divert the spring water before it reaches the chlorination process," Tucker says. The water would be piped 500 yards downhill to the acreage that was donated for the bottling plant. The water would be treated with carbon filters, ultraviolet sterilization and de-ionization, according to a master plan the town wrote last October. Ginger Springs has a reputation for being pure, according to John Neilson of Neilson Research Laboratories Corp. The lab tests the water from Butte Falls and a dozen other Southern Oregon cities. "Ginger Springs has had a clean history from 1985 on; a beautiful, clean record," says Neilson. "It's a good, high-mountain spring water. It's an excellent idea to bottle it." Butte Falls has wanted to share its wealth with the world for more than two decades. Former mayor Ron Orman bottled Ginger Springs water on the steps of the Butte Falls tavern he used to own, attaching a label depicting his tavern band and mailing 300 to 400 bottles. A case ended up at an Air Force Base in Kansas and a bottle made it into the hands of President Ronald Reagan, Orman says. "It was just a gimmick to get people to come up here and spend money," Orman says. "We used old wine bottles, washed them out, filled them with tap water from the kitchen -- that was before the water was chlorinated -- and sealed them. I think we spent $15 total for the labels." Today, bottling plant enthusiasts envision something more like Crystal Geiser's automated plant in Weed, Calif., where the water is bottled near its source at the base of Mount Shasta. The master plan for the Ginger Springs Water Bottling Facility calls for a $1.59 million, tourist-friendly building employing six to eight people. There would be a museum, conference rooms, gift shop and forested landscaping. "Schools could come here for field trips and everyone would leave with a free bottle of Ginger Springs water," Hailicka says. Hailicka is pleased about the Superior Lumber land donation. Another step to making the bottling plant a reality is the city's overhaul of its water system, she says. Crews will install a valve and pipes to divert spring water to the bottling plant as they complete a $1.6 million water project in Butte Falls. "I'd like to see trucks leaving here loaded with cases of drinking water," Tucker says. "We want to establish a new source of income for a town that's been impacted by cuts in the timber industry." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA