ST. ALBANS – A bubbling ground spring in St. Albans known locally as Glenwood Spring and once touted as “the king of table waters” has been purchased by the parent company of the 159-year-old Poland Spring Bottled Water Co. as a water source.

St. Albans is a small community on Big Indian Lake with a population of less than 2,000.

The project could put 40 trucks a day, seven days a week, on St. Albans’ roads.

Town Manager Larry Post said the project did not require any local permitting or approval from the town’s planning board. A simple building permit will be all that is required, said Post.

Tom Brennan, New England area natural resource manager for Poland Spring, confirmed that more than 80 acres on Springer Road and another parcel on Grant Road recently were purchased by Nestle Waters of North America, Poland Spring’s parent company.

“We will renovate the facility and build a loading station,” Brennan said. He denied that the location would become the site of a new Maine bottling plant. “We are continually, actively looking for water sources,” he said. “That is what this is.”

Brennan said the capacity of the spring still is being assessed but if it produces water at a rate similar to two springs being developed by Poland Spring in western Somerset County, the company estimated that traffic could increase by up to 40 trucks a day.

The project likely would involve construction of a pumping station powered by propane, a well protection building, a buried water line and a gated access road, likely from the Grant Road, which is paved. The project should be up and pumping by fall, said Brennan.

Glenwood Spring has a rich local history, according to the “History of St. Albans, Maine,” written by Gladys Bigelow and Ruth McGowan Knowles in 2003.

Dr. Charles Moulton, a doctor new to town in the late 1800s, responded to local claims that the waters could cure everything from rheumatism to kidney problems and in 1884 he had the water analyzed. A business sprang up and the spring water was bottled and sold on a regular route in St. Albans, Hartland and Pittsfield. Its advertising promised that the water “restores the affected, prevents disease and purifies the system.”

All that remains of the original business is a fallen-down springhouse.

When word began spreading among residents on the Springer Road, they became nervous that their quality of life on Big Indian Lake would be adversely affected by a multimillion-dollar bottling plant. The company previously had said it planned to build a second bottling plant by 2007.

Poland Spring has not announced where the plant will be but has indicated it will be in Somerset County.

Poland Spring poured $250 million into Maine operations between 1998 and 2003, and it now has 521 employees and an annual payroll of more than $26 million.

It has springs and bottling operations in Poland Spring and Hollis, and also draws water from a spring in Fryeburg. Together, they supply Poland Spring with roughly 1 million gallons of spring water a day.

The company is now developing a new spring source in Pierce Pond Township, 100 miles north of the bottling plant in Poland Spring, and nearby Spring Lake Township. The springs could help support the second plant, which likely will be located in the Madison-Skowhegan area and will provide more than 300 new jobs.

Representatives of Nestle Waters North America Inc. told the Land Use Regulation Commission at its June meeting in Greenville that it planned to draw up to 80 million gallons of water per year from an aquifer in the unorganized territories, less than a mile east of Flagstaff Lake, to help supply production at its Hollis facility, which is at capacity.