Without job guarantee, Everett tells bottler no

Published 6:41 pm Thursday, April 15, 2010

EVERETT — A plan to let a company tap into 5 million gallons of city water daily appears to have just gone down the drain.

Mayor Ray Stephanson asked city attorneys to stop work on a contract with Tethys Enterprises, which wanted to bottle brewed teas and other beverages.

“It’s over,” Stephanson said Wednesday.

In an April 12 letter to the company, Stephanson said he had “questions about whether your proposal truly promotes the city’s long-term best interests.”

The city wanted the contract to include a provision that would link the number of jobs the company created to the amount of water it received. Tethys officials told the city that was a “deal breaker,” according to the mayor’s letter.

Stephanson said Wednesday the city’s water was too economically valuable for the city to move forward without a commitment about job creation from Tethys.

“It’s been my belief all along that this was about jobs,” he said. “For the city to commit to a long-term agreement for water, we very clearly need a commitment the jobs are going to be there.”

Tethys head Steve Winter said he was surprised by the city’s reluctance, partly because it was city officials who originally suggested Everett’s ample water supply was an asset that could benefit the company.

The city’s economic developer and others in the city’s administration, including mayor Ray Stephanson, have worked with Tethys officials for almost a year and a half. The mayor even spoke on a promotional video the company produced.

Everett officials also suggested the company purchase a parcel of city-owned land along the Snohomish River as a site for building the plant. The city owns 74 acres made up of multiple parcels near the river known as the Kimberly Clark property.

Tethys wanted to build a 1 million-square-foot “green” beverage plant, a venture that Winter said could employ 1,000 workers or more.

In order to reassure private investors, the company said it must have a 30-year commitment from the city for 5 million gallons of water a day. That’s 2 percent of the total amount of water the city can move each day using its pipeline from the Sultan Basin.

Winter said Wednesday morning there had been some disagreements on some of the terms of the contract, but his company was still hopeful a resolution could be reached.

“My position is we are trying to explore the city’s concerns and see if we can address them,” he said.

Winter, a former executive at Intermec, said he’s negotiated many a contract and it’s normal for talks to stall.

“Sometimes it takes some additional effort to get through,” he said. “Until some breakthrough happens, we are at a standstill right now.”

The contract the city was considering was unique. Other companies use city water — the mill operated by Kimberly-Clark uses 35 million gallons a day — but none have a contract that guarantees a certain amount of water in the future.

If Winter had been able to secure funding, buy land and meet all the normal requirements to build a beverage plant, the city would have been obligated to provide water, Stephanson said.

Debra Smith: 425-339-3197, dsmith@heraldnet.com.