SOH2O is dedicated to protecting fresh water supplies in the state of Maine. Our efforts are focused within our state and we work to prevent large scale water extraction, monitor our local water district, enact legislative protections for our water, and educate local communities to the importance of local control of our water.

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“It is unfortunate that you have chosen to give former law Professor Orlando Delogu what appears to be the final word on the issue of large water extractions in the town of Wells. He is long on pronouncements and short on insight, with a narrow lens through which he decides what is good for us and what is not.

Equally inappropriate is your headline for his April 27 column, which continues to muddy the issue of water extraction (”There’s no way Poland Spring could have depleted water in Wells”).

The professor seems to confuse the actions of the Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Wells Water District trustees and those of the residents of the town of Wells. More than a year ago the trustees voted to table indefinitely the contract negotiated by their superintendent and representatives of Nestle/Poland Spring.

That contract would, indeed, have provided for substantial income to the water district, but the trustees, in their wisdom and in response to public sentiment, decided that revenue was not the single most important criterion in determining whether to do business with Nestle.

The contract was flawed and reflected little more than Nestle’s self-interest. Then there was the “small matter” of the district charter, which unambiguously stipulates that its water is only for its inhabitants.

The vote last fall by the citizens of Wells had nothing to do with a potential income stream from Nestle. We voted on an ordinance that would have allowed the town to permit and regulate large water extractions in the local aquifer. If it had passed, the town’s only revenue would have been minor and as a consequence of taxes on pipelines and loading facilities.

The water extractions would have occurred on private property, with private landowners profiting in accordance with their own contracts with private/corporate extractors. As the professor would say, statements to the contrary are false.

Voters overwhelmingly rejected the ordinance, preferring that large water extractions remain a non- permitted use. The question of whether there was sufficient water in the aquifer was a minor and peripheral issue, in contrast to what your paper suggests in its headline.

The central question was whether the town or a private corporation should control large water extractions. While it is true that the town writes its ordinances and enforces them, it is also true that large corporations can throw their weight around and unduly influence the permitting process.

Nestle/Poland Spring spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a multimedia blitz last fall to influence the election. Voters resented that action, and were rightfully concerned that the town might not be calling the shots with regard to large water extractions from its aquifer.

Was that an anti-corporate bias? Yes, and rightfully so. For the professor to suggest that such an attitude is inappropriate is, to use his word, ludicrous. The making of good public policy involves far more than weighing economic and scientific data, as he would have us believe.

Our beliefs about what makes for a good community are complex, and can’t be reduced to simplistic notions about what is objective and measurable. Some communities ban big-box stores, others do not. Some allow public nudity, others do not. Some permit corporations to extract their water, others do not.

Don’t lecture us on how we make our decisions, professor.

Joseph W. Hardy”
Wells
This editorial originally appeared in the Portland Press Herald on 4/14/10.
Online version here.

• Please check out these new magnets Save Our Water is selling designed by architect Cynthia Howard:
  
  DONATION of $20.00 or more to SOH2O for this really awesome car magnet. Please send a check marked “car magnet” in the memo section to
  Save Our Water
  PO Box 634
  Kennebunk, ME 04043

 

• Nestle in the News:
  Nestle Waters CEO defends company at documentary screening
  from Greenwich Times, 4/24/10
  Bottled water — is it commodifying a valuable public resource and harming human health and the environment, or is it a healthy alternative to sugary soft drinks, manufactured by a local company conscious of its carbon footprint?
• Four new letters in the Letters to the Editor section added.