H2O takes new tack against big bottlers

AUGUSTA – The group behind past attempts to tax Poland Spring and Maine’s other large water bottlers unveiled a new legal strategy Thursday to put a damper on the industry – by going after the companies’ trucking network.

Members of the organization H2O for ME said they plan to file suit in state Superior Court against the Department of Health and Human Services for allegedly failing to enforce a 1987 state law that prohibits bulk transportation of water away from the source.

Supporters said they also are lobbying legislators to create a new Freshwater Resource Board – financed by a per-gallon fee on “nontraditional” users – to monitor and protect water supplies from overwithdrawal.

Group leaders also are working to gather the 55,000-plus signatures from registered voters to put the board proposal to a public vote.

“Currently, Maine has a resource that is very valuable and extremely vulnerable because Maine’s law is weak, outmoded and inadequate,” James Wilfong, executive director of H2O for ME, said during a press conference in the State House.

In 2005, Wilfong’s organization fell about 1,400 signatures short of the number needed for a November 2006 ballot question seeking a 20-cent tax on every gallon of water that larger bottlers remove from the ground.

While ultimately unsuccessful, the signature drive prompted considerable debate over whether Poland Spring and other bottlers should pay to tap into Maine’s wealth of clean, tasty ground- and spring-water supplies.

Questions also have been raised about how Poland Spring’s massive pumping and bottling operations in western Maine are affecting local wells and aquifers.

Poland Spring countered that taxing water withdrawals would put the bottler at a competitive disadvantage, thereby threatening the company’s more than 500 employees as well as a Maine product known around the world.

This time around, H2O for ME hopes to use existing law against the companies.

The group plans to seek a judicial order forcing DHHS to strictly implement the 1987 law that prohibits companies from transporting water – whether through pipeline, trucks or containers – beyond the source municipality or bordering towns.

Poland Spring’s pre-1987 operations were grandfathered under the law. But Barbara Merrill, an attorney representing H2O for ME, said the company’s subsequent withdrawal operations should not have been permitted.

“We’re asking a judge to require the state of Maine to comply with its own law,” said Merrill, a former state representative and gubernatorial candidate.

Nancy Beardsley, director

of the Maine Drinking Water Program, which is administered by DHHS, described in an e-mail message Thursday evening the process her agency uses for reviewing and approving bulk water transport applications.

“The law is actually a prohibition on the transport of water” except under certain special conditions, she explained.

Beardsley said the program has authority under state law to review appeals to the prohibition if the applicant can meet the following four conditions:

. Transport of the water will not constitute a threat to public health, safety or welfare.

. Water is not available naturally in the location to which it will be transported.

. Failure to authorize transport of the water would create a substantial hardship to the potential recipient of the water.

. The water withdrawal will not have an undue adverse effect on waters of the state.

Since 1987, Beardsley said, the program has issued 15 bulk water approvals and 18 bottled-water facility approvals.

Thomas Brennan, the northeast natural resources manager for Nestle, the parent company of Poland Spring, said the company takes its stewardship of the resources and compliance with state laws very seriously.

Brennan served on a recent task force that looked at the state’s groundwater supplies and extraction.

“The bottom line is the water resources in Maine are very well-protected and regulated, and there’s not a need for another bureaucratic agency to get involved in this,” Brennan said of the Freshwater Resources Board proposal.

Brennan said tankering water is key to Poland Spring’s operations in Maine and that the company works diligently with the state to comply with the laws.