Why I chose the name HappyHill SpringWorks
 

Back in early 1990, I was struggling to come up with a new way to earn a living.  Due to a misaligned leg during surgery, I was beginning to develop  arthritis  and was losing mobility in my hip.  I was no longer able to work successfully  as a carpenter or pipe welder due to the physical limitations that my hip put upon me. During the course of a meditation, I received clear guidance that I should develop a spring on my property as a source of bottled water.  That the water was healing water and that I should deliver it by mail order.  At the same time, I received the name HappyHill Spring.  I added the word Works to it to indicate that more than just spring water was available.  I had known about this spring on my property since before I purchased the property.  I didn't initially know where the spring was located because the property was so overgrown.  I knew it had a strong source because further down the hill the water has cut a ditch about 6 feet deep. A lot of water, over a long period of time.  This guidance, though clear, seemed not to take into consideration how much water weighed or how much it would cost to mail it.  I decided to proceed in a step by step process and see what would happen.

I was rather naive and thought that because I had received this information during a meditation it would be a slam dunk to accomplish it.  It wasn't.

I wanted to do things right, so I contacted the N.C. Dept. of Agriculture because they are the ones who issue the certificate allowing the water to be bottled as spring water.  They referred me to the Dept. of Environment, Health and Natural Resources, Public Water Supply Section, Division of Environmental Services (Dept. of Envir.) to oversee the approval of the source.  In North Carolina, there are very strict requirements if the water to be bottled is from a spring.  There is a two step approval process overseen by the Dept. of Envir. The first step is approval of the spring site.  A representative of the Dept of Envir. conducts an initial site investigation to determine if the site meets general safety requirements including hydrological and geological features, potential for surface water contamination,  etc. etc.  The second step is intensive water sampling and data collection in the most severe environmental conditions.  Well, I never made it past the first step.  The engineer out of Raleigh with Dept. of Envir. made several trips out here to look at my site and finally said that he was requesting that his supervisor from Fayetteville join him on my property to investigate the spring site.  He cautioned me that his supervisor was very strict and tough and would probably turn my site down off hand.  Well, to make a long story short, when she was here she said, "Mr. Hildebrand, in all the time that I have been investigating spring sites I have only found two that I thought had commercial potential, this is one of them. Would you be interested in selling the property?"   I told her no.   It turned out that a bottler down on the coast was trying to find a source of spring water closer than the mountains.  She wanted to consult with the engineers from up in the mountains who had done a lot of spring sites before issuing the site approval so we arranged a day and time to (to be continued)

Send mail to Tom@happyhillspringworks.com with questions or comments about this web site.