Greene County Commission allows bottling operation to continue testing Spring

Greene County commissioners held a meeting Monday and discussed putting a moratorium on a spring water bottling operation managed by a company called Eternal Water. Residents are concerned about the environmental impact and want to see policy to prevent big companies from taking local water. Eternal Water stated that in their lease agreement with the property owners, people in the community can still have access to the spring and that any work done when extracting water would be under TDEC. The commission voted 7 yes and 13 no, declining to pause the operation. Once results of the water submitted to TDEC comes back, the state department will ultimately tell Eternal Water if it can proceed with the operation and what the guidelines are to keep the spring safe.