Owen County BZA tables Blue Triton Brands’ ownership change after residents raise groundwater, traffic and permitting concerns

The Owen County Board of Zoning Appeals on Tuesday tabled a request related to the ownership and name change of a Pottersville Road spring-water extraction and bulk-loading operation after residents pressed the board for more information about water extraction, truck traffic and permitting.

Representatives of the company seeking to buy the site — introducing themselves during the hearing as Arlene Anderson Vincent, natural resource manager for the firm, and Mark, a quality-assurance leader at the company’s Greenwood facility — described the operation as long-established and said they planned no operational changes other than the ownership and name. "We have come to an agreement with HDI on a purchase agreement with the intent and goal to close before 2025," Arlene Anderson Vincent told the board, and she said the company has done independent scientific studies and uses monitoring wells to track groundwater.

Current owner Ty Hubbard said the site received conditional-use approval in 2017 and that the facility has completed required permits and registrations, including Indiana Department of Health bulk-water-source registration and general (Rule 5) permits for activity affecting more than one acre. Hubbard said the operation reports monthly extraction totals and that their design limits extraction to about 50,000 gallons per day, under the DNR’s 100,000-gallon threshold for a "significant withdrawal." He added that monitoring wells and totalizers provide verifiable extraction data.

Neighbors contested that account. Chuck Perish, speaking by text during the public-comment period, said residents have noticed changes such as cloudy well water and frequent truck traffic on Pottersville Road. "They're hauling water on Pottersville," Perish said, adding that neighbors worry the site "will make our wells go dry." Another local resident, John Tucker, said he routinely sees multiple tankers coming from the site and questioned why a well capable of higher pumping rates was installed if only occasional loads were planned.

Several speakers asked the board to review the original 2017 meeting minutes and conditional-use findings, saying the initial approval was presented as limited to hydrology testing rather than ongoing commercial sales. Tom Perish told the board he had asked at the original hearing whether water would be sold and recalled being told it would not. Owners and company representatives said business plans and clients changed since the original approval and that they had followed the permitting steps advised by county staff.

Board members emphasized the limits of their role: the BZA must decide whether to grant a variance or conditional-use approval; technical determinations about groundwater or alleged impacts on private wells would typically involve state agencies such as the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. The board asked staff to have the county attorney and planning staff review the 2017 record and recommended independent hydrogeologic review be sought.

After extensive public comment and discussion, a board member moved to table the application until the next scheduled meeting to give the board time to gather documents, solicit outside expert review and conduct a site visit. The motion was seconded and the board voted unanimously to table the matter. The board directed staff to coordinate a site visit with the company and to post notice when the site visit and next hearing date are finalized; the chair announced the next meeting date as Dec. 11 at 7 p.m.

The company representatives said they would make records and monitoring data available to any experts the board retained. The board’s action preserves the status quo while it pursues additional review and a public site visit.