CHARLESTON -- Whether it's a place to gather and talk about last night's sitcoms or a convenient, refreshing serving grabbed on the way out the door, the bottled water industry is a booming business. And West Virginia has a stake in the game.

The Mountain State is home to 11 bottled water companies with about 147 employees altogether, and most of the water comes straight from the state's natural reserves, but it barely puts a dent in the nationwide business.

Water, Water Everywhere

The July/August edition of Fast Company magazine reported that Americans spent more money last year on Poland Spring, Fiji, Evian, Aquafina and Dasani water than they spent on iPods or movie tickets -- $15 billion, to be exact -- and it's expected to grow to $16 billion this year.

Bottling and selling a natural resource regulated by American cities for health and safety seems like the oldest trick in the book. It has a long history.

Bottled water became convenient and trendy thanks in part to Perrier's marketer Bruce Nevins, who marketed the water with connections to exclusivity, health and celebrity when he joined the company in 1976. When Evian stepped into the American market with plastic bottles in 1984, water became an anywhere, anytime beverage.

"Nevins was a remarkable marketer," said Richard Merrill, plant president of Tyler Mountain Water in Poca. "He made Perrier a socially acceptable alternative to ordering a drink or soft drink, and that really was the start of the real growth and becoming more mainstream."

Steve Spence, executive director of the West Virginia Development Office, said West Virginia companies are helping meet a demand for purified and spring water that has skyrocketed in recent years.

"We're fortunate to have a number of companies that natively produce quality bottled water," Spence said. "I'm sure most of us are customers -- just take a look around the office for the water cooler."

Liters of Labor

David Thornton, water program manager for the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources' Public Health Sanitation division, keeps tabs on all bottled water in the state, a job he said has grown in the past 10 years since he's been there.

"Most people are trying to get away from the taste," Thornton said. "All public water is safe. I don't want to give any false impressions, but depending on where they're getting their water from, different treatment methods have different tastes."

Thornton said he figures the average person doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about water, except to doubt whether spring water really comes from springs.

"There really is a variation," he said. "Spring waters have different tastes, from whatever rock formations they go through; they'll pick up those minerals in the ground, so you get a different taste."

But bottling water isn't a get-rich-quick or easy business in West Virginia.

"It's a big misconception," said Rodney DeHaven, part owner of Berkeley Club Beverages Inc. in Berkeley Springs. "People think they've got a spring, so they're going to sell it and make money, but you've got to spend a lot of money."

At West Virginia's Pride of the Mountains water plant in Parsons, four people bottle and distribute the water, selling mostly 5-gallon jugs, and it requires all hands on deck when the plant bottles half-liters and gallons.

"We do them all by hand," said part owner Gregory Hyre. "We have one person stacking them, one filling, two putting caps on and one at the end tightening, putting them in cases and stacking the cases.

"We don't have a bottler, and to get a capper is $50,000-$60,000. We're not a big business, but we make a living."

Fast Company reported about half the cost of the average $1.29 bottle of water goes to the retailer. As much as one-third of the cost is for the distributor and transportation, about 12 to 15 cents is the water itself, and after the bottle and cap, about a dime of profit is left.

Each Plant is Different

Most of West Virginia's small bottled water plants make their profits through sales of 5-gallon jugs, but each plant has its own story.

Tyler Mountain Water is one of the most recognized names in West Virginia water.

The company began in 1930 with a well on Tyler Mountain west of Charleston, and the company has managed to roll with the punches of the retail bottled water industry.

"The retail side is very competitive," Merrill said. "For the smaller companies like ourselves, you've really got to try to find a niche."

Tyler Mountain began blow molding its own 8-ounce plastic bottles in 1980, cutting down on costs and selling the bottles to the railroad industry, which opened even more doors.

"In the 36-plus years I've been in the industry, there has been a great deal of change," Merrill said. "Bottled water today is very mainstream. Some people predict that by 2010 worldwide bottled water sales may exceed carbonated beverages."

Green Acres Regional Center Inc. in Lesage in Cabell County is a training center for people with disabilities, and among the 130 people there, about 12 are learning motor skills by bottling water in 5-gallon jugs for offices and 20-ounce bottles for the state parks.

Green Acres water comes from a well, and Director Jon Floyd said the water was named best-tasting water in the world a few years ago, along with "awards and accolades from every direction."

Floyd said Green Acres produces about 700,000 gallons a year, and the plant has grown dramatically during the past 10 years.

"It just seems like the bottled water industry is always being slammed, and I don't know why," he said. "I know a lot of people think we're kind of backward (in West Virginia), but that's the people who don't live here."

Floyd said he thought West Virginia bottlers are more concerned with quality than quantity, and he has 12 people at his plant inspecting the quality of their product.

"The market is flooded with water right now, no pun intended," he said. "Everybody's looking for a niche, but there's still enough market out there if you have good quality control."

Sweet Springs Valley Water Co. in Gap Mills in Monroe County started when a few people wanted to spur some economic development.

"I met the owner of Tyler Mountain Water, and he said we ought to go in the 5-gallon business, so we re-did our business plan and opened in 1990," said Howdy Henritz, manager at Gap Mills. "We started with three employees, and we've currently got 13 employees, nine trucks, 2,600 customers we deliver to and four distributors."

Henritz said the 5-gallon sales have been a slow but steady growth, and Sweet Springs Valley Water Co. has won four international awards for being the best-tasting spring water.

"We have two springs in Peters Mountain in Monroe County," he said. "It's actually right at the Eastern Continental Divide, and we're at the top of the watershed, so any potential for pollution is really small.

"It's a limestone water with a sweet taste. If you look at the labels, it gives you a source, and if it says Sweet Springs in Gap Mills, it's us."

Allegheny Products Inc. in Beaver near Beckley has found the best way to get its water in as many hands as possible is to make it portable and handy enough to fit in hands everywhere -- from the Strawberry Festival to a politician in a parade.

"Our best salesmen are the little 8-inch-tall plastic guys -- those little bottles with our number on it," said Gary Hawkins, marketing director of Allegheny Products. "People taste it, then start looking around on the label for who made it."

Allegheny Products began in 1998 with a retail brand of water called Anqet, and as the retail market changed, Hawkins said the company transitioned to become more of a private-label bottler, which encompasses everything from water for Go-Mart and BB&T Bank to a few cases with personalized labels for a wedding.

"It's like any other business," Hawkins said. "Things change so you have to be fluid and creative. ... I think the key is to diversify, to be in all markets."

Hawkins said Allegheny's source spring is Sweet Springs in Monroe County, which is natural spring water, a claim not everyone can make. The Food and Drug Administration only allows a water company to claim its product is natural spring water if the water springs to the surface on its own. He also said Allegheny Products' water has won the gold medal in its category at the Berkeley Springs International Festival of the Waters in Berkeley Springs four times, something nobody else in the world can claim.

The Water Store in Beckley, co-owned by Sue Blake and Debbie Busch, is more of a self-serve plant.

"We purify right on the spot, using a reverse osmosis system," Busch said. "We use the public water source, so it takes 5 to 6 gallons of city water to make one gallon."

Busch said customers can fill their own 5-gallon bottles for $2.36, and they don't sell any smaller bottles for retail.

Competing With Coke

PepsiCo has the nation's number one brand of water, Aquafina, which takes 13 percent of the bottled water market, according to Fast Company magazine. Coca-Cola's Dasani water comes in at number two, with 11 percent of the market. Nestle is a heavy contender, as well.

Pepsi announced this week that Aquafina soon would be labeled as tap water, surprising consumers who thought they were paying for something more, but processing tap water is something Henritz said is an advantage because Pepsi can bottle anywhere it operates with a consistent taste.

The heavy hitters of the beverage industry can be hard to contend with in West Virginia, however. West Virginia's Pride of the Mountains used to bottle water for Shepherd University until the school signed a contract for Pepsi to become the university's sole beverage company.

"We used to do a Shepherd label, and they bought close to 800 cases a year, but then Pepsi got in there and pushed us out," Hyre said. "We could probably get into some of the smaller high schools if we took the time, but we make our money on the 5-gallons. I can't compete with Aquafina or Dasani."

DeHaven, with Berkeley Club Beverages, said he worries only about taking care of customers in his own backyard, and he doesn't keep track of the International Water Competition rankings.

"We don't get involved in any kind of price competition," DeHaven said. "We just give a quality product and good service at a good price, and when you (serve) your backyard, what else do you need?"

But competition does little to dissuade most West Virginia bottlers. Henritz said most state companies have a handshake agreement to share the market.

"I don't need to steal someone's customers," he said. "Sometimes I'll recommend somebody if a person's outside my service area, and I try to keep as many products and services as I can local; that's why we got started."

Hawkins said at Allegheny Products, "we just beat the pants off of everybody when it comes to quality, but without a big, snooty price tag."