Editorial: Sifting through the Poland Spring water contract debate (July 11, 2008)
As mentioned in last week’s editorial, the issues surrounding the potential for the Kennebunk-Kennebunkport-Wells Water District and Nestle Waters’ Poland Spring subsidiary to tap the Branch Brook aquifer spring in Wells, are complex.
Among the letters we have received from critics of the plan, we notice two separate, if intertwined, arguments: that this deal is bad for residents served by the water district and that bottling water is bad for the environment. In an attempt to clarify the positions surrounding each of these arguments, we have decided to address them one at a time.
In a page 1 story, reporter Gillian Graham attempts to answer the first question: What does this particular contract mean for this particular watershed and the citizens in whose name the water district’s trustees act?
Production facilities across virtually all industries use water either as a direct ingredient in the finished product, within the production process, in some ancillary support activity or very likely in all of the above roles.
That Nestle covets the water itself, packaged and marketed but with little other added value, seems to offend people although that offense does not illuminate any real damage the contract may engender.
Several critics have described the water within the aquifer as a finite resource – a sealed vessel that will be sucked dry if the bottler gets its way.
This description frames the argument as a zero-sum game: more water for Poland Spring means less water for everyone else – including the ecosystem. It may be better to think of the aquifer as a sponge sitting under a dripping faucet. As the sponge gets saturated, it begins to leak and the water resumes its journey down the drain and eventually into the ocean. Long after the faucet stops dripping, the sponge will continue to leak. Making sure the sponge never goes dry before the spigot is opened again is the role of the water district, supported by several state environmental and resource agencies as well as Nestle’s own self interest.
For anyone who has spent some time in Maine, it often feels as if that faucet is always running.
Whatever the ramifications of global climate change, be they a hotter and drier; wetter and colder or hotter and wetter Maine (or some other combination of precipitation and temperature), it is important there be a mechanism in place to assure the needs of the district’s inhabitants are met first and foremost.
The contract and the 432,000-gallon per day extraction ceiling it contains is the first step in what could be a year long process of engineering, testing and permitting that will help determine exactly how much water the aquifer contains, how fast it leaks (through the spring the company would like to tap) and how fast it gets recharged. This work will help set the actual extraction limits that may be significantly lower than the contact allows and could, conceivably, make the site economically unfeasible for the company.
The questions surrounding the impact of infrastructure and related truck traffic on the undeveloped parcel, its wildlife and neighbors are valid concerns, although they seem more suited to be addressed during any planning process and it may be wise for officials in Wells and Sanford to take a look at their zoning ordinance to see those rules are well-suited for managing these impacts.
Yet none of this addresses the larger, some may say philosophical (others may say existential), question: Is bottled water bad? What is the effect, not of one spring producing 432,000 gallons of water, but the cumulative effect of innumerable bottlers and distillers producing millions of bottles transported millions of miles?
Do the marketing efforts of bottled water companies undermine the public’s confidence in public water supplies?
What is the responsibility of each consumer making daily choices about what they should and should not or will and will not buy?
What can public institutions and governments do to wean the public off the bottle and should they do anything at all?
What, if any, answers we come up with we will share next week. In the meantime, let us know your thoughts.
–Ward Peck
Among the letters we have received from critics of the plan, we notice two separate, if intertwined, arguments: that this deal is bad for residents served by the water district and that bottling water is bad for the environment. In an attempt to clarify the positions surrounding each of these arguments, we have decided to address them one at a time.
In a page 1 story, reporter Gillian Graham attempts to answer the first question: What does this particular contract mean for this particular watershed and the citizens in whose name the water district’s trustees act?
Production facilities across virtually all industries use water either as a direct ingredient in the finished product, within the production process, in some ancillary support activity or very likely in all of the above roles.
That Nestle covets the water itself, packaged and marketed but with little other added value, seems to offend people although that offense does not illuminate any real damage the contract may engender.
Several critics have described the water within the aquifer as a finite resource – a sealed vessel that will be sucked dry if the bottler gets its way.
This description frames the argument as a zero-sum game: more water for Poland Spring means less water for everyone else – including the ecosystem. It may be better to think of the aquifer as a sponge sitting under a dripping faucet. As the sponge gets saturated, it begins to leak and the water resumes its journey down the drain and eventually into the ocean. Long after the faucet stops dripping, the sponge will continue to leak. Making sure the sponge never goes dry before the spigot is opened again is the role of the water district, supported by several state environmental and resource agencies as well as Nestle’s own self interest.
For anyone who has spent some time in Maine, it often feels as if that faucet is always running.
Whatever the ramifications of global climate change, be they a hotter and drier; wetter and colder or hotter and wetter Maine (or some other combination of precipitation and temperature), it is important there be a mechanism in place to assure the needs of the district’s inhabitants are met first and foremost.
The contract and the 432,000-gallon per day extraction ceiling it contains is the first step in what could be a year long process of engineering, testing and permitting that will help determine exactly how much water the aquifer contains, how fast it leaks (through the spring the company would like to tap) and how fast it gets recharged. This work will help set the actual extraction limits that may be significantly lower than the contact allows and could, conceivably, make the site economically unfeasible for the company.
The questions surrounding the impact of infrastructure and related truck traffic on the undeveloped parcel, its wildlife and neighbors are valid concerns, although they seem more suited to be addressed during any planning process and it may be wise for officials in Wells and Sanford to take a look at their zoning ordinance to see those rules are well-suited for managing these impacts.
Yet none of this addresses the larger, some may say philosophical (others may say existential), question: Is bottled water bad? What is the effect, not of one spring producing 432,000 gallons of water, but the cumulative effect of innumerable bottlers and distillers producing millions of bottles transported millions of miles?
Do the marketing efforts of bottled water companies undermine the public’s confidence in public water supplies?
What is the responsibility of each consumer making daily choices about what they should and should not or will and will not buy?
What can public institutions and governments do to wean the public off the bottle and should they do anything at all?
What, if any, answers we come up with we will share next week. In the meantime, let us know your thoughts.
–Ward Peck
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