![Bob Hall, a member of the Weed City Council, at Beaughan Spring, a source of Weed's water.]() |
| Bob Hall, a member of the Weed City Council, at Beaughan Spring, a source of Weed’s water. Jim Wilson/The New York Times |
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| Good morning. |
| Last year we published a story about a small city in Northern California battling a lumber company over access to water. The article focused on the city of Weed, a faded mill town of 2,700 residents in the foothills of Mt. Shasta. For over a century, Weed’s tap water has come from a natural spring on land owned by the timber company, Roseburg Forest Products. Roseburg last year told the city to find another water source, angering residents who said the water was always intended for municipal use, not to be given to the highest bidder. |
| That’s where we left off. |
| Seven months after our story ran, a group of residents sent a letter to the district water office asking to clarify the ownership of the municipal water. They also convinced the Weed City Council to back their request. |
| Roseburg responded by suing the residents and the Weed City Council. |
| “It is difficult, until you are in the middle of something like this, to understand how intimidating and scary it is to be named in a lawsuit by a huge company with lots of money to spend on lawyers,” Bruce Shoemaker, one of the nine residents who was sued, wrote in a letter to a local newspaper. |
| Two Oakland-based lawyers, James Wheaton and Paul Clifford, who are representing the Weed residents, asked Superior Court Judge Karen Dixon to dismiss the suit against the individuals on the grounds that it violated their freedom of speech. The lawyers invoked a California law that allows defendants to strike down lawsuits meant to silence criticism, cases known as strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP suits. |
| Last week the judge ruled in favor of the residents. |
| “I think Roseburg figured they would scare these people and shut them up,” Mr. Clifford said in an interview. “But instead of it scaring people off, it emboldened them.” |
| An emailed statement by Roseburg’s general counsel, Stuart Gray, said the company was “disappointed” that the case against the residents had been dismissed and was considering an appeal. |
| Who owns the water? The Weed City Council and Roseburg will continue to battle it out in court. |
