Category — Maine

Press Release
November 3,2009

Contact: Jamilla El-Shafei,organizer for Save Our Water and The Branch Brook Aquifer Coalition (email: jamillaelshafei@gmail.com)
Contact: Jean Foss, spokesperson for Protect Wells Water and member of The Branch Brook Aquifer Coalition (email: jeanfoss@earthlink.net)

Wells voters rejected a water extraction ordinance 3,194 no to 1,420 yes.

Jamilla El-Shafei, organizer for Save Our Water, a water justice organization which includes residents from Wells, Kennebunk, Kennebunkport,Ogunquit and Biddeford, who organized the opposition along with Protect Wells Water said “In spite of the Nestle Waters Corporation spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to influence the vote in Wells, the citizens are standing up to protect their water from corporate exploitation and sending a message: No to large scale water extraction and No to Nestle!

We are hoping that the State of Maine takes notice and that our legislators put water in the public trust.”

“Presently, surface water and ground water are regulated under two different bodies of law, yet they are part of the same hydrological cycle. We need to have one law which protects our water, the state’s most precious resource and place it in the public trust.”

Jean Foss, spokesperson for Protect Wells Water said “Rejection of the Wells ordinance, question #1, makes clear that the people of Wells do not want large scale water extraction. By this decision Wells groundwater remains fully available to the homes and local businesses that depend on it. Wells voters can credit themselves for turning out in numbers to vote on a critical and confusing issue.

Future assaults on our aquifers are likely as water becomes scarce. Citizens are concerned and increasingly well informed. They rightfully demand that our laws, both state and local adequately defend people’s access to clean and abundant water.”

It’s been a little busy lately (and in a month or two, it’s going to get even busier), but we’ve got a lot of Nestle-related news popping in Maine, so I thought I’d create a quick digest post with the things that have come across my desk.

The Movie “Tapped” Premiers

The long-awaited “Tapped” movie – by the same people who produced “Who Killed the Electric Car?” – premiered in Maine. We’ve shown the trailer before, but if you missed here it is (complete with a kickbutt soundtrack):

Tapped takes a hard look at the bottled water industry, focusing on Nestle’s legal bludgeoning of Fryeburg, Maine – and the mess they made of the tiny rural town.

Tapped also ties the bottled water industry to the plastics industry, and while those unfortunate folks in the movie suffering from the effects of plastics manufacturing wouldn’t suddenly enjoy a respite if all bottled water was eliminated, it’s important to recognize the upstream impacts of consumption.

You can visit the .

See a short review at the Grist (online magazine).

You can read an interview with Tapped’s director here.

You can see a list of theaters showing Tapped here (or reserve your own copy of the DVD).

You can also join their Facebook page here.

Nestle Forced to Remove Test Wells From Wildlife Preserve Near Shapleigh, Newfield

This one’s sweet; Nestle drilled 23 test wells in a State Wildlife area without any public notice, though you could say the public “noticed” once word got out.

The residents of Shapleigh and Newfield reacted quickly, passing a moratorium on water extraction, then passing rights-based ordinances that prohibited extraction. From the Kennebunk Post site:

Winn-Wentworth, who said she discovered the wells after people told her about heavy machinery taken into the wildlife preserve, said “we are not going anywhere until this is over.”

When the state and Poland Spring did not reach an agreement, the bottling company approached Shapleigh selectmen about using town land to draw from the aquifer, which also flows under the Vernon Walker preserve.

In September 2008, Shapleigh voters passed a moratorium on drilling for wells and commercial water extraction.

Gobeille, Winn-Wentworth, Hennessey and others are members of the group formed to prevent extraction at the site. In the year since the group formed, membership numbers have been fluid, but Gobeille estimated at least 20 people were active members.

Dubois said the moratorium, not ordinances passed in Newfield and Shapleigh in March, was a signal the company should look elsewhere for water.

There’s even a video of the removal:

Note the final sentence in the printed excerpt above – the bit where Nestle operative Dubois tries to suggest the whole thing wasn’t a big deal.

This is standard operating procedure: Nestle continues to assert that its recent reversals nationwide are due to the economy and a lack of information, and not the result the activists.

Here’s a wake up call for you, Nestle: bottled water is suddenly the ugly kid who has to have the pork chop tied around its neck just to get the dogs to play with it.

Poland Spring Exporting Maine Water in Tankers

This isn’t exactly news as much as it is an unpleasant reality for Poland Spring, who have repeatedly touted the jobs they provide in Maine (and repeatedly held those jobs hostage when they haven’t gotten what they wanted).

Water activists created a video documenting Maine’s water leaving the state, bound for bottling plants elsewhere – suggesting that Poland Spring isn’t the down home Maine company with 100+ years of history Nestle keeps telling us it is, but simply an interchangeable “brand” that parcels resources in the most profitable way.

From the SOH2O page:

What do Mainers get when our water is trucked out of state in bulk? Money for the water…think again! We do get wear and tear on our highways and roads which costs taxpayers dearly and air pollution which fills the air.

The video’s right here, though you’ll want to visit the SOH2O site anyway to read all the latest water news.

Nestle/Poland Spring aren’t having it all their way in Maine – they were run out of Shapleigh and Newfield by a citizen uprising, and just removed the test wells they drilled without the knowledgege of the local citizenry:

After an extended grassroots campaign, Nestlé is finally removing 23 bottled water test wells from a wildlife management area in Shapleigh and Newfield, ME.

Shelly Gobielle and her neighbors first discovered the wells a year and a half ago, three years after Nestlé’s under-the-radar installation. Upon realizing that Shapleigh was likely one of the next site for Nestlé’s water extraction for its Poland Spring brand bottled water, residents approached town officials with their concerns about what bottling would do to the local ecosystem. Their words fell on deaf ears, as Nestlé had already lobbied for and secured the support of the Shapleigh town officials.

The only option was for residents to take matters into their own hands, forming the group Protect Our Water and Wildlife Resources (POWWR). Members hit the streets and went door to door educating the public and signing enough petitions to call a town meeting, held four months ago.

Residents in both Shapleigh and the neighboring town of Newfield passed ordinances that asserted the right of townspeople to control their own water and to prohibit commercial water extraction, a reality that can at last be assured.

Secret negotiations are a standard part of the Nestle approach – time and time again, they’ve quietly negotiated deals with officials they approached quietly well in advance. McCloud, the Sterling/Clinton mess, Shapleigh & Newfield… the list goes on.

Bye Nestle. I don’t think the town’s going to miss you or your legal bludgeon.

via Maine Community Rebuffs Nestlé Over Water Rights | The Water Conservation Source.

When we first posted the trailer to the movie “Tapped” we got a lot of traffic (and why not – it’s a kickass trailer).

That’s why we’re happy to post it again – and to announce the World Premiere, which takes place (appropriately) in Waterville, Maine – and features some of the folks fighting Nestle Waters of North America’s predations in Maine:

World Premiere of the documentary Tapped from Atlas Films
(by the director of “Who Killed the Electric Car”)

featuring Maine Water Justice Activists in the struggle

Sunday, July 12th at 3:30pm
Waterville Opera House
Waterville, Maine

(Movie site: http://www.tappedthemovie.com/)

Nestle Waters of North America seems to be in the international spotlight right now, and they don’t seem to be all that happy about it.

A Paris-based TV crew is in McCloud right now doing a bottled water story, talking to supporters and those who oppose Nestle’s proposed water bottling plant.

Given Nestle’s history in McCloud (secret meetings, divisive statements designed to factionalize the area, etc), even some of Nestle’s supporters are questioning the Swiss multinational’s intent to build here, and international attention probably won’t help.

McCloud – like Fryeburg – has become something of a public relations albatross around Nestle’s neck, and only the prospect of relatively obscene profits can be keeping the company here.

Back in Maine, a Swiss-based film crew made the rounds, but according to local activist Jamilla El-Shafei, Nestle operative Mark DuBois wanted nothing to do with the film crew:

This morning members from SAVE OUR WATER attended a Wells Chamber of Commerce event at 7:00 am called EGGS & ISSUES. This is a monthly breakfast meeting of local business people when the Chamber invites a guest to speak about a pertinent issue.  Today’s presenter was Mark DuBois, the resource manager from  the Nestle label Poland Springs. The tradition at the meeting is to have Q&A after the presentation.

Dubois gave his power point presentation and after his dog& pony show, he said that he would be happy to take questions “outside.” Clearly, with two film crews present he did not want to have to answer any difficult questions. So I went up to him to ask a question  as the camera man followed, and he started moving away from me. Corey Hascall, his pr person (fyi she was my face book friend until I learned that she worked for Nestle’s PR firm–very unethical), blocked the camera with her hands. She positioned herself between DuBois and me.

Then when I got close to DuBois she physically shoved me! She is a big woman and it was quite a push back! It was caught of film by the Swiss Film crew who is in the country making a film about Nestle. However, I managed to follow DuBois out of the door and the film crew followed me. DuBois then walked very fast to his gas sucking, big truck.

Nestle’s tactics remind me of the trend in national political PR, where politicians avoid press conferences, preferring instead to speak in settings where the message can be broadcast without question, and the question that are asked are invariably docile.

While Nestle’s support at the grassroots level of most towns continues to fall, it’s clear they’re still playing the political game far better than the citizens who oppose them, as evidenced by this letter to the editor about Nestle’s gold-plated access to the in-process Wells water ordinance:

Water in the News » When it comes to water are your interests being heard? (letter)

The ordinance was turned down leaving the town to now rely on a regulatory ordinance, an ordinance that will require anyone who wants to obtain more than 5,000 gallons of water on any given day to apply for a permit from the town. At the Town Meeting on the 16th, the selectmen promised that a better ordinance would be written by the people of Wells and not by outside interests. Ron Collins recently said to the editor, “the final ordinance will be ours and NOT language dictated to us by some outside group whose agenda is nothing more than to take away our rights as U.S. citizens.”

Well, I have to say I was disappointed to discover that at the May 27 Ordinance Review Committee meeting a representative and lawyer for Nestlé were present. They were provided with a copy of the regulatory ordinance before the meeting and were allowed to and encouraged by the town attorney to make provisions that they saw fit. I am asking you to consider who’s language this new ordinance is being written? Is this the voice of the town? Last time I checked Nestlé is in fact an outside group with an agenda, so why then are they writing the rules for our town. Are we to regulate them, or are they regulating us? Can we trust that this new legal document will actually control water extraction or is it merely an illusion so the town feels protected?

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Protest  Nestle Lawyers writing Wells Regulatory Ordinance at the Wells Select Board’s Meeting

Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:30pm
Activists and allies will meet in front of the Wells Town Hall  on rt#109, for a protest.
At 7:00pm,  we will go into the Town Hall  for the Select Board Meeting to voice our outrage about the Nestle lawyers writing the Wells Town Ordinance and the corruption of the Ordinance writing process.

Contact: Jamilla El-Shafei cell: 603.969.8426 email: jamillaelshafei@gmail.com
Organized by SoH2o  Save Our Water  www.soh2o.org in solidarity with P.O.W.W.

At the Wells Ordinance Review Committee Meeting, Nestle/Poland Springs resource manager Mark DuBois and lawyer Philip Ahrens from Pierce Atwood addressed the O.R.C. with their changes of the Wells Water Regulatory Ordinance which is being proposed. That happened, in spite of the fact, that the ORC would not allow “public comment” from anyone outside of the town of Wells.

Who gave Nestle the ordinance and why? Who is really writing the ordinance- the  Ordinance Review Committee from Wells,  OR Nestle? Will the Wells Select Board take a stand and represent the citizens?

The people who reside in the region of the Branch Brook Aquifer and KKW Water District have clearly stated that although they did not want a rights-based ordinance, they do NOT want to sell their water to Nestle. The Wells Select Board is supposed to represent the citizens, so we are asking “will they  continue to allow the ORC to get assistance from the Nestle Corporation in crafting language for the ordinance?”

We do know from experience, that when there was a contract on the table between Nestle and the KKW Water District, that it was one-sided and written by the Nestle lawyers and pitted the citizens against the water district. Will the proposed ordinance be detrimental to landowners with wells, if there are problems when Nestle mines water? Must the town of Wells side with Nestle in event of a lawsuit, as was the case in the proposed contract with the KKW Water District.  The proposed contract between Nestle and the KKW Water District can be found on the web site of www.soh2o.org
It  is but one of many examples which demonstrates that Nestle calls the shots in each community where they operate.

This will surely be a heated meeting! We hope that the media will join us and shed light on the corruption which has been taking place in Wells.

Additional Information:

It appears that Nestle has funded the  Wells Chamber of Commerce’s attack on the rights-based ordinance, on Save Our Water and on me personally, in an effort to discredit the Water Justice Movement and to advance their  Water Mining Agenda. Three out of five Select Board members have been  actively promoting  Nestle, in spite of  overwhelming public opinion which indicated that citizens do NOT want to sell  water from the Branch Brook Aquifer the multi-national corporation.

While Nestle Waters/Poland Spring claims that Maine’s groundwater is so abundant, there simply won’t be issues with extraction – or that groundwater pumping couldn’t harm anyone’s well or aquifer – they seem to have forgotten what happened in 2002, when Maine residents struggled with severe water shortages, record-low groundwater levels, and dried-up private wells:

Area water resources improved since 2002 drought | SeacoastOnline.com

The year 2002 found Maine at the forefront of national news as its residents struggled for the fourth year in a row to adapt to a shortage in the water supply. A report by the U.S. Geological Survey said the drought “was the most severe drought on Maine rivers in more than 50 years.”

According to a New York Times article from March 15, 2002, whole neighborhoods on Sebago Lake were forced to flush their toilets only once a day, to forgo the use of their washing machines and use bottled water to brush their teeth.

Things were bad the state over.

According to a report by the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Environmental and Watershed Research at the University of Maine, “Maine experienced the worst drought in over 30 years during 2001 and 2002.”

Groundwater, lakes and streams went to record lows, and thousands of private wells went dry. Public water utilities were forced to tell customers to cut back on consumption and, looking ahead, seek out alternate water sources.

Yet Maine today is a water-rich state, said John Peckenham, the director of the Maine Water Resources Research Institute at the University of Maine.

“But we are vulnerable to changes in weather, like the drought of 1999-2001,” he said. “A lot of water suppliers were affected then, including the (Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, and Wells Water District).”

As for Nestle’s claims of monitoring to “protect” the resource, you only have to look to the Mecosta County (MI) for proof to the contrary, where residents had to take Nestle Waters to court to halt excessive pumping, which was damaging a wetlands and a lake.

In fact, when some residents complained that Nestle’s pumping was lowering the lakes so much their docks no longer reached the water, Nestle’s concern for the resource consisted of little more than offering to extend the docks.

nestle waters, nestle, poland spring, bottled water, maine, water extraction, groundwater

Via the Portland Press Herald, we learn about what’s starting to look like a general uprising against Nestle/Poland Spring’s business model of profiting heavily from water while externalizing every other cost to the public. Poland Spring feels the heat in Augusta | Portland Press Herald

Poland Spring is fighting a number of measures as lawmakers consider proposals ranging from a tax on bottled water to a bill that would allow local communities to deny corporations their constitutional rights. The proposals come as the water bottler has also had to contend with the recession, growing public distaste toward plastic bottles and opposition to its activities in a number of Maine communities.

Today, the Taxation Committee holds a public hearing on a proposed penny-a-gallon tax. The tax would apply to containers of five gallons or less, with half the revenue offsetting other taxes; 25 percent to watershed and water-quality protection; and 25 percent to the community from which the water was extracted.

Also up for discussion is a bill allowing cities to treat corporations differently than individuals – the issue at the heart of the bans voted in by citizens in Newfield and Shapleigh.

On Wednesday, the State and Local Government Committee considers a bill that would allow municipalities to deny corporations constitutional rights. Discussion among committee members and a vote are possible during the work session.

The measure is related to local water-extraction ordinances promoted by activists in several communities. The local ordinances state that corporations doing business in the community do not have the protections found in the federal and state constitutions.

Residents of Newfield and Shapleigh have approved such measures in recent months. Selectmen in Wells had voted against putting the measure on the ballot, but a petition drive gathered enough signatures to force a special town meeting that will be held May 16.

“We’re trying to protect our own aquifer here in southern Maine because we don’t want to get in bed with Nestle. And we want the right as local people to protect our local resources,” said Cynthia Howard, a Biddeford architect and a member of Save Our Water, or SOH2O.

This one faces a much tougher battle, and the state attorney general’s office thinks it might just be unconstitutional. It’s also been derided as “anti-business” though we have to comment; this wouldn’t be necessary if some businesses were more citizen friendly (and yes, we mean you, our lawsuit-happy friends at Nestle).

maine, nestle waters, poland spring, water extraction law

Yet more news guaranteed not to make Nestle Waters/Poland Spring particularly happy:

KENNEBUNK — A bill to regulate how local water districts enter into contracts to sell water was enacted by the state Legislature last week.

Rep. Ed Legg (D-Kennebunk) introduced the legislation, which would require any consumer-owned water utility to hold a public hearing with notice before entering into a contract to sell or lease water rights.

Although the original text also included a referendum requiring majority approval of voters in the district to enter into such an agreement, Legg is pleased with the compromise passed on Wednesday, he said.

“It was a tough political battle,” Legg said. “We made a real step forward with this bill.”

Legg said he was prompted to introduce legislation by a proposed contract between the Kennebunk, Kennebunkport & Wells Water District to sell water to Poland Spring in June 2008. Some residents in the district were opposed to the contract and organized a rally at the district’s Kennebunk office. The contract was tabled indefinitely in July 2008.

Legg said he was surprised to find that no public process is required for water utilities to enter into agreements like the Poland Spring contract. He hopes local water utilities – or the Legislature – will amend their charters in the future to require referendum for such contracts.

Norm Labbe, superintendent of the Kennebunk, Kennebunkport & Wells Water District, said last week he was comfortable with the bill that came out of the utilities and energy committee.

“It’s not very different from what the district would have done if the issue were to come up again,” Labbe said Wednesday. “We did not anticipate what happened last summer. It would be a very public process if it were to ever come up again.”

The language proposed by the Committee on Utilities and Energy requires a public meeting and notice at least 30 days before the meeting. A water district cannot enter into a contract until at least 30 days after the public meeting. Sales to existing customers or other water utilities would be exempt from the law.

Given that Nestle’s modus operandi includes flying under the radar as much as possible in rural communities (witness the behind-closed-door negotiations in McCloud, and the last-minute discoveries of contract negotiations in several Maine communities), this is clearly a step forward for Mainers wishing to retain local control of resources.

nestle, nestle waters of north america, poland spring, water extraction, bottled water

My recent post about the declining bottled water market drew the “interesting” response quoted below, which largely parroted Nestle’s pro-bottled water talking points.

The somewhat one-sided (and marginally abusive) language caused me to trace the IP address (for the first time), which showed the poster – hiding behind a Yahoo.com email address – was actually commenting from a PerrierGroup.com IP (65.200.16.246 = ustems91.perriergroup.com. admin.perriergroup.com.)

In case you didn’t realize it, Perrier Group is now Nestle Waters N.A., which forces us to ask the obvious: does Nestle encourage employees or contractors to post comments while hiding their affiliation behind unrelated email addresses?

By gosh, I think I’ll ask them. In fact, the Nestle employees and/or agency folks who monitor the Internet could spare me the trouble of an email by adding a comment to this post clarifying their stance. That would save all of us a lot of time.

Should I look back at the negative comments on this site and see who might be a Nestle shill?

Allegations of Spying = Irony

What’s ironic is the original post that drew the comment mentioned a formerly hard-to-believe allegation about Nestle’s hiring of a security company to infiltrate a Swiss organization opposed to the company, collecting confidential data on activists and forwarding it to the corporate folks.

Not so hard to believe now.

You can see the original post here, though I’ve quoted the comments below:

Ashley Brown { 04.09.09 at 3:54 pm }

I think this is a bunch of crap. Neslte Waters keeps people healty,and above any other bottles industry, soda,juice,even beer, uses less water than any other company, and they are the only beverage industry to make stries with environmentally friendly plastic. So why not bash on the people who really use plastic and water sources. Did you know it takes 3 gallons of water to make one gallon of beer? Also 10 gallons of water to make one tire for a truck? So you wanna talk water maybe you should know alll the facts not just “Nestle”. Wow, unreal.

TC { 04.10.09 at 9:39 am }

Ashley: You’ve successfully parroted Nestle’s talking points. Which is hardly surprising since your IP address traces back to the Perrier Group, which holds a security certificate from “nas.nestle-watersna.com”

This suggests you are a Nestle employee or contractor trying to hide that fact behind a Yahoo.com email address.

And of course, what you’re ignoring is the simple fact that soda, juice and beer don’t pour out of your tap like water does, so bottling it (in plastic bottles which will be with us for several hundred years), transporting it, and then selling it at higher-than gasoline prices defies logic. And in fact, a declining bottled water market is simply a reaction.

For that matter, you don’t comment on the legal bullying or ethics of Nestle, who apparently were involved in a spying caper? (Suddenly, that’s more believable than ever). That earns an “unreal” from us.

More Fun With Nestle as it happens.

Rights-based water ordinances have yet to face a court challenge (and we’re expecting one at some point), but their “give the right to decide back to the people” message is certainly resonating with small town residents.

It appears that the town of Wells is set to follow the example of Shapleigh and Newfield, both of whom passed water-extraction ordinances which were aimed largely at Nestle/Poland Spring’s water extraction activities.

Maine town eyes ban on water extraction

Supporters of a measure to prevent companies such as Poland Spring from extracting groundwater in Wells are presenting a ballot proposal to the town’s selectmen.

Organizers say they have gathered signatures from more than 800 Wells residents in support of putting the measure on the June 9 ballot.

In many small towns, elected officials have not done a good job representing the interests of townsfolk (the original Nestle contract in McCloud is a prime example), and residents simply want the right to decide for themselves.

This is not good news for Nestle/Poland Spring, who cannot be happy to see rights-based water ordinances popping up like spring daffodils.

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