At the base of Green Mountain, tucked among pine trees between Hauser and Newman lakes northeast of Spokane, lies Green Mountain Inc.s bottling plant.


At that about 1,100-square-foot plant, which is located on the homestead of the couple that owns the company, the 12-year-old business draws its artesian water from a well that was drilled about 20 years ago.


Charlotte McLucas, who owns the business with her husband, Paul, says they arent certain of the wells water source, although they expect that it comes from the nearby mountains. All they know is that the well contains water that has a low mineral content and is plentiful. Paul McLucas says the state Department of Agriculture, which tested the water, claimed it was as close to a natural distilled-water well as one could get.


The McLucases decided to start Green Mountain after Paul McLucas had been in and out of the hospital because of a stress-related illness. He recalls laying in the hospital one day and asking his wife what they would do if he couldnt go back to his job as a machine operator at Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. here.


We were just joshin around, and Charlotte said maybe I could sell pet rocks because we had plenty of them, McLucas says. I joked back and said why dont we sell air, and then Charlotte said, Why dont we sell water. That was basically unheard of around here, but that idea stuck.


Green Mountain got its start in February 1988, when it landed an order from Tidymans Warehouse Foods for 5,000 1-gallon jugs of Green Mountain artesian water. McLucas says that at that time the family had set up a 12-foot-by-60 trailer with a kitchen in the front as a bottling plant, and the McLucas children and their friends hand bottled the entire order.


By the end of that summer, though, the McLucases had secured financing to build a plant and to buy bottling equipment and a pickup truck for deliveries. The financing was timely because before long, Paul McLucas was bottling the gallon jugs, delivering them to several Spokane-area grocery stores, and restocking the grocery stores shelves with the water.


In mid-October of 1988, McLucas managed, with the help of a local businessman, to get his foot in the door at URM Stores Inc. By doing so, McLucas was able to leave the shelf stocking to the stores that bought the water from URM, and Green Mountain also could expand its reach into other areas outside of Spokane, which it didnt have the manpower or resources to do on its own.


One time, when the McLucases went on a trip to Montana, they passed through Miles City, Mont., where they made a quick run into a grocery store. There, they saw bottles of their Green Mountain water lining a shelf.


We couldnt believe it. There was our waterin Miles City, Paul McLucas says.


In 1992, after receiving some requests, the McLucases decided to bottle 5-gallon jugs that would fit in a water cooler. Green Mountain bought 10 water coolers that it could rent to customers, bought a number of 5-gallon jugs to fill, and set to work.


Nobody in town was doing that, McLucas claims. We did pretty good, and that business just grew right along.


By 1995, Green Mountain decided to concentrate solely on bottling the 5-gallon jugs and to stop bottling the 1-gallon jugs. The decision was prompted by a big increase in the cost of cardboard. For deliveries to URM, Green Mountain had to package six 1-gallon jugs into a cardboard box.


Some people became irate because they couldnt buy the 1-gallon jugs anymore, McLucas contends. He adds that one customer from Grants Pass, Ore., called to ask where they could get Green Mountain water because their store had stopped carrying it. People just started calling us. It was so surprising.


$80,000 in jugs, coolers


Green Mountain, which employs just the McLucases, bottles an average of 50 5-gallon jugs of water a day, although the well is capable of producing enough water to fill 100 5-gallon jugs in an hour. Paul McLucas is responsible for bottling and deliveries, while Charlotte McLucas handles the accounting side of the business.


The couple declines to disclose the companys annual sales, but say they believe theyve invested more than $80,000 in reusable jugs and in the water coolers that the company rents to about 200 customers. Green Mountain rents water coolers for between $4 a month and $10.50 a month, depending on the type of cooler requested, and sells its bottled water for about $5 a bottle, although a volume discount is available, they say. In addition to artesian water, the company also distills and sells water to commercial customers who need such water to operate cooling systems for big pieces of machinery.


The artesian water from the McLucases well travels through an ultraviolet light and two filters before flowing through a spigot and into sanitized plastic water jugs.


A machine in the bottling plant washes and rinses each bottle so its ready to be filled. Once a bottle is filled, Paul McLucas snaps a cap on the top, and its ready to be delivered to the companys customers, which consist of both individuals and businesses.


McLucas delivery route includes the Spokane area, North Idaho, and as far south as Tekoa, Wash., and Plummer, Idaho.


Our customers are as loyal as they can be, McLucas says. One lady told me that if she could figure out how to shower with (the water) she would. He says another customer, a local law firm, uses the Green Mountain water to fill its tropical fish tanks, while a local vet clinic gives the water to the animals at the clinic.


They claim the animals heal faster and their coats get thicker when they drink our water, Charlotte McLucas says. She adds that other customers have said that after setting down a bowl of tap water and a bowl of Green Mountains water, their pets sniffed each bowl and then drank from the one with Green Mountains water.


I dont understand any of that, Paul McLucas says. But I can tell you it makes really good coffee.