Apple juice is sweet, but it has left a bitter aftertaste in Dolores.

"Personally, I have never been involved in a situation this contentious," admitted Alice Kotrlik, a business-finance specialist with the Office of Economic Development who attended a meeting between the town of Dolores and Mountain Sun Organic Juice Company on Thursday over the company’s wastewater discharges.

After a day of sometimes-heated discussion — including a secret meeting held between town-board members — the engineers representing Mountain Sun and the town came up with several options to pre-treat Mountain Sun’s organic waste, but have yet to calculate each option’s cost.

Coincidentally, Thursday was also the deadline for Mountain Sun to submit a schedule of compliance to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Mountain Sun was issued a notice of violation and compliance order from the EPA on Dec. 1, for violating the terms of Mountain Sun’s permit to discharge into the town’s wastewater-treatment plant.

Before the 2001 apple-pressing season, which begins in September and ends in the spring, Mountain Sun was ordered to either cut back production or put in an expensive pre-treatment facility to comply with the town’s permit.

But according to Bill Russell, the president and co-founder of Mountain Sun, the latter is financially not feasible.

"The reason we’re not going to be able to put permanent pre-treatment in place is because the company is financially out of money," Russell explained to the four town-board members gathered. "It would be impossible for us to do it at this point in time."

"Our window to put a long-term pre-treatment has gone from five months to 17 months," said Mike Noel, Mountain Sun’s vice president of operations.

Instead, Mountain Sun will cut 35 percent of its production, and process apples in Washington and California — supplementing some of the juice with imported concentrate bottled at the plant.

Russell said that if the company were in a position to buy an approximately $500,000 pre-treatment facility outright, the company’s board would consider sending the waste out of state for full treatment because it would cost them $1,000 less a month than the $11,500 a month it costs to do business with Dolores.

"I’m not sure it’s in the town’s best interest to see all that money leave the state of Colorado," said Russell. "We’d rather pay the town. We feel that the town is in the wastewater business, and we’re not in the wastewater business."

It was a tough year for Mountain Sun. A newly elected town board cracked down and imposed a permit with a surcharge the company had never paid before. The company also installed a temporary pre-treatment system and is now faced with purchasing apples out of state because of a frozen apple crop in Arizona.

In addition, Mountain Sun also faces an up-to-$27,500 fine from the EPA for each of the 23 times it has violated its permits since the December compliance order was issued — which company employees say could put the business under unless the town steps in and retroactively changes the permit.

Ronda Lancaster, the town clerk, said such a move could be illegal and would set a bad precedent for future permits.

"Mountain Sun is working hard to restructure the company and stop the losses," Bill Russell said in a statement released to the Journal. "Sixteen people have been laid off to date, with deep cuts in sales and marketing. Mountain Sun’s Dolores plant will produce limited apple juice this season."

From the town’s perspective, Mountain Sun simply needs to clean up its act, or else. Town staff say the problem has gone on for years, and Mountain Sun has dragged its feet.

"The only thing we ever wanted is a fair and equitable solution," explained Mayor James Moore.

"Mountain Sun wants the town to subsidize their operation. The people in this town cannot afford that, and the people will not stand for that," stated trustee Richard Teel.

Val Truelson, a town trustee, said that former town staff had attributed the raise in domestic sewer rates four years ago to Mountain Sun’s use of the system, and Moore said the wastewater treatment plant is losing more than $100,000 a year.

Since September, the town has charged Mountain Sun $23,762.50 for its permit, a charge they say is perfectly fair compared to a survey of the rates 12 other towns charge for organic waste.

Mountain Sun doesn’t dispute that a charge should be levied, but says that it should be more in line with the amount of waste they dump, not what is permitted.

At times, Mountain Sun has been late on its payments, and members of the town board frequently charge at town meetings that if other businesses didn’t pay their water bills, they would get "shut down." But Mountain Sun has always paid the water bill, just not the surcharge levied within the permit.

The town has also been frustrated by the unsteady stream of waste coming into the plant, and has refused to allow Mountain Sun to comply based on a monthly average of organic waste.

"We’re able to control our plant better with more equalization of flow," explained Lancaster.

If Mountain Sun’s waste causes the town to reach a biochemical-oxygen-demand level that is over 80 percent of the town’s total permit, the town is immediately required to start planning to expand the plant — a cost the trustees would like to avoid.

But if the town board and Mountain Sun can agree on where and what kind of pre-treatment plant to put in, Kotrlik, with the Office of Economic Development, said the project has the potential to be publicly funded with a $500,000 grant, and a possible loan.

"I’ve got to have a city and company who can work together," explained Kotrlik.

Kotrlik said the company qualifies for the grant because it needs the money to retain jobs.

Clyde Church, a field engineer with Mid-America Manufacturing Technology Center — a manufacturing consulting agency, moderated the meeting.

Church cited a preliminary study done of Mountain Sun’s economic benefits which showed that over a 10-year period Mountain Sun will contribute $83 million to the state economy, $44 million to Montezuma County, and $5 million to Dolores — with a significant benefit to low- and moderate-income people.

"The company is going to do everything they can to retain those jobs, that’s the bottom line," said Kotrlik.

The town-board members gathered at the Ponderosa Restaurant — Mayor Moore, Teel, Ponderosa owner Val Truelson, and Tazewell Vass — said they would only ask for the grant if the resulting pre-treatment facility would be of "zero cost" to the town, as well as a benefit.

"The town would love to have Mountain Sun stay here, but the town cannot afford to pay them to stay here," said Teel.

After Teel stipulated his requirements for Mountain Sun, the four trustees left the room — at Teel’s suggestion — to meet in a room adjacent to the conference room where the meeting was taking place.

The four did not say why they were meeting, nor explain what they discussed when they returned.

Colorado Open Meetings law states that, "All meetings of three or more members of any local public body at which any public business is discussed are declared to be public meetings, open to the public at all times."

If public officials wish to close a meeting, they are required to vote and disclose the topic of the closed session.

Moore, on Friday, said the meeting "had absolutely nothing to do with public business." The four trustees were reportedly looking at trustee Truelson’s shelves that they "were thinking about putting in the town hall or the club house. No decisions were made."

Even if no action was made, if the town trustees were discussing town business, the trustees are subject to the open-meetings laws.

During the afternoon session, the board expressed a concern that Mountain Sun would move, leaving the town with an unfinished project or requiring them to pursue legal action, which would be required by the Office of Economic Development if the company left after receiving a grant.

"We don’t want to move. We don’t plan on moving," said Noel. "We’re going to stay here and work it out or we’re not going to be here."

A possible pre-treatment facility would be located either at Mountain Sun’s property or the town’s.