Sidewinder Strikes Again

A sidewinder is a type of rattlesnake that slides sideways as it moves forward. It’s found in the southwestern United States, ranging from Texas to California.

Sidewinder LLC is the name of a California company that seeks to put a water bottling plant at Middleway. That bottling plant would take over a million gallons of groundwater a day from the aquifer under Jefferson County and sell it who knows where under the name “Mountain Pure.” Would this negatively affect local agriculture? Probably, but nobody knows how much, which is a serious problem.

The plant would engender significant heavy truck traffic through the historic village of Middleway. Many of the buildings in this picturesque community predate the Civil War and sit on unsturdy foundations of loose rock. How much damage to Middleway would be caused by this truck traffic? Nobody seems to know, and again, not knowing the answer is a serious problem.

This past winter, Sidewinder applied for a permit for the plant from the Jefferson County Planning Commission. After a very long meeting at which many citizens spoke against the plant, the Planning Commission voted to deny the permit application, on the grounds that the proposal violated the county’s zoning ordinance.

Sidewinder challenged the Planning Commission’s decision in circuit court and lost. Sidewinder has appealed the circuit court’s decision to the West Virginia Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court has yet to decide the appeal, or to even schedule a hearing on it.

Unless and until the state Supreme Court rules in its favor, Sidewinder’s project is dead. Only a ruling by the state Supreme Court that the circuit court erred could revive Sidewinder’s hopes.

But Sidewinder is proceeding anyway as though the court system doesn’t exist. In a clear attempt at an end run around the state Supreme Court, Sidewinder asked the Charles Town Utility Board (CTUB) to ask the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to provide the necessary water infrastructure to the site of its proposed plant.

Here things get really sticky. Without a vote and apparently unbeknownst to any of the members of the board, CTUB’s director sent the application to DEP, and DEP granted the request. CTUB’s director has since resigned, and it wasn’t until after her resignation that the board members became aware that she had signed the request to DEP.

As you might expect, when all this became public the citizenry was outraged. By popular demand CTUB held a public hearing on the issue on September 22, at which more than a hundred people attended. (I was there and counted the house. Confessing my nerdiness, I compulsively count the house at every meeting I attend.)

After an executive session, CTUB voted to withdraw the application for water service to Sidewinder and to schedule a public hearing on a brand new application. The board also voted to request that DEP take no action on the new permit application until the state Supreme Court has decided Sidewinder’s appeal.

Further, CTUB voted to launch an internal investigation to find out how in the world the original permit application had been submitted. CTUB also agreed that the internal investigation may reveal the need to institute a third-party investigation. I applaud CTUB’s decisions.

I want to know why DEP granted an application for a project that has been prohibited by the courts. Once again, for emphasis, Sidewinder’s Middleway bottling project application has been rejected by the Jefferson County Planning Commission, and that rejection has been upheld by the circuit court. Unless that circuit court ruling is overturned by the state Supreme Court, Sidewinder may not proceed. If there is no statute requiring state agencies to abide by court decisions, there should be.

Another wrinkle in this saga is that should Sidewinder’s bottling plant project be approved (which I think would be a travesty), it will need a water line. West Virginia American Water (WVAW) would be competing with CTUB to provide that service.

Should the plant be built, I very strongly believe we would all be better off if CTUB were to provide that water than we would be were WVAW to provide it. CTUB is a public body, responsible and accountable to the people. WVAW is a private for-profit company. WVAW’s rates are higher than CTUB’s.

Hey, how can Sidewinder call its product “Mountain Pure,” if it’s to be extracted from the floor of the Shenandoah Valley?

As a reminder, the election is less then three weeks away and early voting starts in a few days.

This article appeared in the Martinsburg Journal on October 13, 2026.