A Philadelphia Cream Cheese plant in the Village of Lowville, NY, has been issued a mandatory water conservation order. The plant recently used more than a million gallons of water in a day, when the village’s water filtration plant can only filter 1.3 million gallons in a 24-hour period, according to WRVO News.
Kraft-Heinz, owner of the plant, recently made a $100 million expansion to the Lowville location. A company spokesperson said that the village was told water usage would rise after the expansion, but the mayor of the village said that “we were not planning that our system would be taxed and react the way that it’s reacting.” She added that the company is supposed to be recycling more of the water it draws.
The state Department of Health notified the village in July that the cream cheese plant’s significant usage of water would be “unsustainable and disruptive to your community at large” if the situation wasn’t addressed. Kraft-Heinz is working on solutions that will ultimately allow it to use “clean, polished water during our manufacturing processes,” the company told the Watertown Daily Times.
Kraft-Heinz and the village are working together for a solution. Meanwhile, local leaders are considering adding more filters to the water treatment plant to increase its speed.





