Message on a bottle wasn't phrased well. (Tar Heel Tattler).

Water bottlers love to plaster their products with images of bubbling brooks and mountain meadows. But the competition in this roiling segment of the beverage industry -- Coca-Cola and Pepsi are investing billions -- can get as rough as whitewater.

Case in point -- Walter Church, a

But a group of competitors wants the state to stop the Churches from labeling their product that way. Bill Miller, president of the North Carolina Spring Water Association, admits his 20 members have a stake in limiting competition, but he argues that if nature doesn't send water bubbling to the surface on its own, it's not spring water. "I believe in the dictionary definition," he says. And he does not want to see it watered down. Spring water sells better than plain bottled water.

In 1996, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruled that a bottler who drew water from a well could call its product "spring water" if the well shared the same underground source as a spring. The usual test: pump the well and see if the spring level drops. Four years later, the Churches and a partner bought Table Rock. The state, which enforces the FDA rule, had twice before refused it spring-water status because the prior owner hadn't performed the pump test, which costs about $12,000. Plus, state tests indicated that his water had slight chemical differences from the spring's.

After buying the company, the Churches decided to try again. When the N.C. Agriculture Department was slow to respond, Rep. Church, a Valdese Democrat, met three times with department officials, including Weldon Denny, the deputy commissioner. That has Miller's group crying foul, though Denny insists no special favors were granted. "Walter Church said, 'This is what we'd like to get done, if it can be done. And if it can't, so be it.' There was not one iota of arm-twisting."

In June, the department and FDA approved Table Rock's status as spring water after a pump test and a chemical analysis indicated the well and spring are connected. But the matter isn't settled. Miller's group expects to hire another hydrologist to examine the well and spring. If he gets different results, it will ask the state to revoke Table Rock's spring-water status.

For now, Table Rock, which has about 20 employees and bottles 15,000 to 20,000 gallons a day, will use the spring-water label only on large containers such as water jugs for offices and not on retail bottles.

Due to the bottling plant's location near Linville Gorge, Table Rock calls that "wilderness water."