Diana might remember this. It's a small, few hundred families and retirees, rural Wisconsin town. There are other towns, more tourism oriented, with strip clubs witin 20 miles. IMO, they picked the wrong town to do battle with. As I alluded to earlier, there was a multi year battle with Perrier conducted a few years ago. The opposition to the bottling plant was based not only on enviornmental concerns, but the fact that the town residents didn't want trucks rolling down their roads, no matter what the economic impact. That's not why they live there. A major difference here, the Governor probably won't come down on the swing clubs side.
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Towns of Newport and New Haven, Wisconsin vs. Perrier
In 2000, Perrier informed the residents of two townships near Wisconsin Dells that they had a plan to begin continuous pumping of 500 gallons per minute of Big Spring into bottles (3). The company promised that pumping would have no effect on the local lakes and streams, and that it would bring jobs and money to the local economy. Many local people started asking "Who needs this?" says Hiroshi Kanno, a local resident. Many of the local residents are retirees who did not need jobs or large trucks rumbling by. Residents got together, putting up signs along roads reading "Go Away Perrier!". The towns even held referendums, voting 4-1 and 3-1 against letting Perrier pump the water. Perrier came back, giving the town $20,000, and launched a public relations offensive; the people of New Haven stepped up their community organizing. After the town chairman accepted the money, the residents held a recall, voting 263-92 against the chairman. Once the new chairman was in charge the people gave the money back to Perrier (4).
The majority voice of the residents was not enough. Governor Tommy Thompson and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) gave Perrier the permits it needed to pump. A group called Concerned Citizens of Newport (CCN) filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Department of Commerce and DNR on a number of grounds, claiming that the DNR violated its duty to protect the Public Trust, the DNR violated WEPA (Wisconsin Environmental Protection Agency) by not adequately identifying and mitigating significant environmental impacts, and by dividing Perrier’s proposed water bottling operations into segments, among other objections (5). After a year, a judge decided that the DNR had not gathered enough data to show there would be no significant impact on the environment.
"In September 2002, Perrier announced that it would not seek to renew its drilling permits in Wisconsin. The CEO of Perrier was quoted as saying that his Wisconsin experience was the worst his company had ever had, and that the people of Wisconsin do not appreciate a good business. Perrier has since turned its sights towards Michigan." (6)
