The company that sells Arrowhead bottled water has been denied a permit by the U.S. Forest Service to continue its nearly century-old practice of taking water from the San Bernardino Mountains.

In a July 26 letter, San Bernardino National Forest District ranger Michael Nobles demanded that Blue Triton Brands immediately cease operations and remove its equipment and infrastructure from Strawberry Canyon northeast of the Arrowhead Springs Hotel, where Blue Triton draws its water via gravity lines.

The hotel is owned by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which also receives a significant amount of water from Blue Triton’s pipeline, according to the letter from Nobles and a Blue Triton spokesman.

Nobles said the company failed to provide information requested in its permit application, particularly regarding the use of water taken from forest lands, and so the federal agency had no choice but to reject the application.

Blue Triton, formerly known as Nestle Waters North America Inc., has not demonstrated that it meets forest management standards related to the construction, operation and maintenance of tunnels that minimize negative impacts on aquifers and their surface extension, Nobles said in his letter.

“Compliance with state laws regarding water rights and use is a prerequisite to the issuance of any special use permit,” Nobles said.

In a statement, a Blue Triton spokesperson said the denial of the permit “has no legal basis, is not supported by any facts, and negatively impacts the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, who rely on our renewable and sustainable water resources in Strawberry Canyon for their water use and firefighting.”

On Tuesday, August 6, Blue Triton challenged the Forest Service’s action and filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. The statement said Blue Triton will continue to operate in accordance with all state and federal laws while it explores “legal and regulatory options in this matter.”

According to Blue Triton Brands, the Forest Service has agreed to grant a temporary 30-day reprieve for the sole purpose of meeting the needs of the indigenous San Manuel people, including fire prevention during the current wildfire season.

Representatives of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians declined comment Thursday, Aug. 8, saying the tribe was not involved in Blue Triton’s permitting process, nor was it involved in the Forest Service’s denial of the application.

Blue Triton, which bottles the water it collects and sells it as Arrowhead 100% Mountain Spring Water, claims that for nearly a decade and in coordination with the Forest Service, it has engaged scientific experts as consultants who have studied the Strawberry Canyon area in unprecedented detail. Dozens of technical studies, analyses, reports and filings have been conducted, the company said.

“The insights and robust data sets developed through these multi-year hydrological and ecological studies, some of which are ongoing, show no significant difference between the environmental and habitat conditions in the Strawberry Canyon watershed where we operate and the adjacent canyons where we do not operate,” a company spokesperson said in the statement.

“These studies prove that our careful management of water and land over more than 100 years has had no negative impact on the environment in Strawberry Canyon. No credible evidence has ever been presented to the contrary.”

On June 25, the environmental nonprofit Save Our Forest Association filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service in U.S. District Court in Riverside, claiming the agency is violating federal law by allowing Blue Triton to take 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. The U.S. Geological Survey documented that Strawberry Creek had “dried up and shrunk,” according to the lawsuit, which had degraded riparian fauna and flora and made the creek unfishable.

“Blue Triton’s settlement has drained Strawberry Creek and diverted natural springs, causing Strawberry Creek to collect water only sporadically and destroying habitats,” says the lawsuit, which is still pending.