By David White
Since 2012, three founding members of Buda Sky Springs Rainwater in Buda have been bottling and distributing one of our greatest natural resources – rainwater.
Buda Sky Springs currently has 12 distributors. They distribute in southwest and northeast regions as well as Texas, and service airports on the east coast and Celebrity Cruise Line out of Miami, Florida. Locally, customers can find the Buda-bottled water at Central Market, Natural Grocers (with the Agana label), Tacodeli, Hopdoddy, Spec’s, Whole Foods (Agana label), Hilton Java Jive, Bee Cave Coffee Company, Royal Blue Grocer, Zach Scott Theatre, Paramount Theatre, as well as many convenience stores.
According to Wendy Goodwin, co-founder and Chief Organization Officer, the water they bottle is all natural, collected rainwater that has never touched the ground. The water is filtered using ozone disinfection and ultraviolet disinfection. It’s a chemical-free process, so it is free of additives and other pollutants. It’s an “environmentally responsible process that uses 100 percent recyclable packaging,” says Goodwin. The caps and bottles are biodegradable, which take 1-15 years to degrade in a landfill.
Goodwin says the founders chose Buda “because of its high standards of air quality, the availability of square footage for the collection surface for the rainwater and convenience of distribution along the I-35 corridor and nearby population centers.”
Buda Sky Springs is a public water system and is regulated by several state and national agencies. “Our local team is required to be licensed and certified according to industry standards,” Goodwin says.
Tanks a lot
The Buda company has a facility that includes a 150,000 square feet of collection area designed with EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) standards. They have three 65,000-gallon tanks to store the collected rainwater inside with a total possible collection of 3.5 million gallons annually, which produces about 22 million half-liter units. Goodwin adds that “Our process is state-of-the-art, introducing no residual chemicals into our collection, storage or transportation cycles. We produce our own biodegradable bottles onsite, so fossil fuels are not used prior to bottling.”
The staff
Buda Sky Springs is owned and operated by three co-founders.
Marc Howell, founder and Chief Executive Officer, has 20 years of experience in creating water systems and water conservation solutions. He is responsible for designing and implementing the engineering plans that create the physical plant for each Sky Springs model.
Rick Nedry, co-founder and Chief Operational Officer has over 22 years of experience in sales, construction and project management. He supervises the daily operations of facility management, production and quality control.
Wendy Goodwin has 20 years of experience in management working with large budgets and educational initiatives. She is currently the supervisor of the sales and demo teams, educational liaison with school districts, and leads office organization.
They have one facility manager – Travis Saunders – and two rainwater technicians, Stephen Jaeger and Craig Nedry.
