From Bill White --

A new industry might be near birth in Sitka: selling clean, fresh water to India.

Newsweek reports that two companies – True Alaska Bottling and S2C Global – are teaming up on the project. True Alaska has rights to 3 billion gallons of water a year near Sitka. S2C is building the water-processing plant in India, the magazine says.

Tankers would carry the water to Mumbai. Sitka is hoping for a $90 million industry.

We in Alaska often are oblivious to the water shortages in many parts of the world. Ideas have been “floated” before about shipping, by sea or by pipe, massive amounts of Alaska water to parched areas. The ideas never penciled out.

This article says the backers hope to ship 80 million gallons water from Sitka “in a few months, if all goes according to plan.”

True Alaska has existed for some years, according to the state’s corporate database and its website. The database shows the shareholders as being Terence J. Trapp of Evergreen, Colo., and Dixie L. Kearns and Nathan Syme of Lebanon, Ore.

S2C Global is based in San Antonio, Texas, according to its website. A July 7 press release announced “that within 6 to 8 months the company expects to start distributing fresh water from its first ‘World Water Hub’ located on the west coast of India.”

Elsewhere on its website, the company says, “S2C’s primary focus is Alaska Resource Management, LLC a partnership with True Alaska Bottling focused on the export of billions of gallons of water globally from the water sheds of Baranof Island, Alaska.”

I haven't had a chance yet to check out this idea any further.