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Craig — With the operation at Colorado West Bottled Water & Ice getting bigger and more demanding, it helps to have a family like Lynne Herring's, she said.

Since Lynne's father started the business in a small building north of Craig around 1985, the Herrings have moved to a larger warehouse near downtown and steadily expanded their business to meet demand for clean water and ice.

As far as demand goes, Colorado West tries to take care of it all.

The family business offers filtered water by the 20-ounce gallon and five-gallon bottle.

It also offers a five-gallon "bag-in-a-box," which Lynne said is ideal for camping or construction sites because it eliminates the trash problem of having dozens of empty bottles left over.

Colorado West also rents and sells water machines for businesses and will service any machine that goes on the fritz.

"We've been here, expanding little by little," Lynne said, pointing around the Colorado West warehouse to extra water filters and larger water reservoirs and additional ice machines, all added to the business at different times.

"This has been a really good little business for us," Lynne said. "It's come a long way in 20-something years."

A lot of that has to do with the family's support, Lynne said.

"All four of my kids have worked here from when they were growing to when they left home," she said with a soft chuckle. "My kids had no life. They went to school and came here and made ice."

The source of Colorado West's products is as homespun as the business itself.

Colorado West pumps in regular city of Craig water, then runs it through three carbon filters and a micron filter.

By the process's end, all salt, microbes and funny tastes have been taken out, Lynne said.

Colorado West uses the same filtered water to make its ice, sold in eight- and 20-pound bags.

Lynne's son Christopher said clean ice is something Yampa Valley residents can appreciate.

"A lot of times, if people use ice, their bottled water - or their coffee or their Kool-aid or whatever - it tastes funny because the ice is the same city water," he said. "With this ice, it's not going to taste funny."

A new loading dock is the family's latest project and also the cause for the mountain of dirt sitting outside the Colorado West building, said Christopher, who works as the business's manager.

The Herrings also are making the metal storage building next door into a large, walk-in freezer.

Better to keep all the ice that'll be coming out of new machines, said Lynne's husband, Brian, who owns the business.

Demand has gone up to where Brian expects to go from making six tons of ice a day to making 17 tons a day.

Expansions and additions won't become the Herrings' focus, however.

Brian said after the loading dock project, Colorado West won't look to expand much more if that means it can't provide the best service to its customers.

"Right now," he said, "we want to take care of our customers here in the valley."

For more information, call Colorado West at 824-5800 or stop by the 452 Barclay St. location.