Challenges piling up for Poland Spring

Noel K. Gallagher, February 6, 2009, Portland Press Herald - After 146 years of doing business in Maine, Poland Spring is fighting battles on three fronts these days -- over test wells in Shapleigh, a proposed tax that would cost the company $7 million a year, and a state Supreme Court case over a pumping station in Fryeburg.

"Where have we done harm or where have we caused issues that have caused people to take drastic steps like this?" asked Mark Dubois, natural resource director for Poland Spring, a subsidiary of Nestle Waters North America.

Poland Spring is the third-leading brand of bottled water in the country, behind Aquafina (Pepsi) and Dasani (Coke), and employs about 800 Maine residents.

The tax legislation is one of 14 bills introduced this session concerning large-scale extraction of groundwater. Not all of the bills' final language is available, but the titles address such topics as providing municipal authority over large-scale groundwater extraction and putting groundwater in the public trust.

All this activity comes close on the heels of a multiyear effort to tighten water regulations, said Andrew Fisk, director of Land and Water Quality at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

In 2007, the state enacted a law that increased oversight and applied more uniform regulations to commercial water extraction in Maine. It was the result of years of negotiation between state officials, citizen water activists – led by James Wilfong, founder of H2O for ME – and Poland Spring representatives.

The new law requires a more public review of extraction permit applications, regulates the impact of commercial extraction on the watershed, sets sustainability standards, and started a new watershed and drinking water management program.

"We thought it was going to be quiet" this legislative session, Fisk said. "I was surprised there were so many bills."

Fisk said he and other state officials have been asked to brief legislators on groundwater regulations in light of the numerous bills.

"People are asking good questions. We're not saying people shouldn't be asking questions, (but) we should be precise and talk about specific aspects of the issue," such as groundwater recharge issues, the impact of truck traffic and the environmental impact of using plastic bottles, Fisk said.

"Bottled water has certainly animated the conversation in the last several years," he said.

Activists have maintained that the 2007 law was just a start. Other issues include taxing extracted groundwater and ending the law of "absolute dominion," which dates to the late 1800s and allows landowners to extract as much water as they want. Groundwater, activists say, should be considered the same as surface water, which under Maine law is in the public trust.

Both of those proposals are before the Legislature this year.

Rep. Jon Hinck, D-Portland, introduced the penny-a-gallon tax bill. It would cost Poland Spring $7 million a year, increasing costs 18 percent, Dubois said.

"This reduces our ability to compete in a very competitive market," he said.

Hinck, an environmental lawyer, said he introduced the bill as a "fiscal equity issue." Poland Spring is a good business for Maine, he said, and should be able to handle the cost.

"We're talking about a twelfth of a cent per bottle," Hinck said. The tax money generated would be divided – 25 percent for the local municipality hosting the facility, 25 percent to state groundwater protection activities and 50 percent to reduce other Maine taxes.

On the judicial front, Poland Spring has a case pending before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court arguing that it should be allowed to build a water pumping station in Fryeburg. The Planning Board blocked it, saying it did not conform to the town's comprehensive development plan. Justices heard arguments on the case in January but have not yet issued a ruling.

Finally, at the municipal level, Poland Spring is about to face several local measures during town meeting season. The most prominent is over test drilling in Shapleigh, where dueling measures will go before voters next month. The Board of Selectmen has backed an article to regulate groundwater testing. A group of residents has countered with an article that would ban selling locally extracted water outside the town's borders.

"We are quite pleased," said Ann Winn-Wentworth, vice chairwoman of Protecting Our Water and Wildlife Resources, a group of Shapleigh and Newfield residents opposed to large-scale water extraction in the area. She referred questions to another group member who could not be reached for comment.

Dubois said he has met with members of the group and has taken them on tours of Poland Spring facilities, but they have been unable to find common ground. Poland Spring, which currently draws water from eight sites in Maine, had hoped to drill about a dozen test wells in Shapleigh to determine whether a 150-acre site could be developed into a new water source.

The selectmen's regulatory approach is "weak" and "lacks specificity," according to a recent press release from the group. The group has submitted a similar article for town meeting in neighboring Newfield, which shares an aquifer and wildlife management area with Shapleigh.

Because the group collected enough validated signatures for the Shapleigh article, the group will set the date for the special town meeting to take the vote. The regular town meeting, when the selectmen's article will be decided, is on March 14.

Dubois said the group's proposed article is unconstitutionally broad.

"We started with talking about truck traffic, and now we're talking about changing laws going off on a tangent that basically breaks constitutional law," Dubois said. By comparison, he said, the selectmen's article has gone through public hearings, with input from hydrologists and state natural resource officials.

Staff Writer Noel K. Gallagher can be contacted at 791-6387 or at:

ngallagher@pressherald.com

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