Commission ruled in favor for Nestlé

The Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) wasn’t swayed by public opposition, approving a long-term contract Thursday [edit: Oct. 2014] that allows privately owned Fryeburg Water Co. to sell water to Nestlé Waters, bottler of the Poland Spring label in Maine. Two temporary PUC commissioners ruled on the matter, saying the contract didn’t violate the “no net harm” standard used for such agreements. The decision overruled the recommendation last month by the PUC staff that the contract be rejected.

Under the deal, Nestlé Waters, a subsidiary of Switzerland’s Nestle SA, the world’s largest food and beverage company, gets control of a key supply of spring water, while Fryeburg Water gets a stable, predictable flow of cash. Opponents say the deal does not serve the interests of a community reliant on a valuable resource. They said Fryeburg Water is giving up the water for less than it’s worth now – and almost certainly what it will be worth in the future, when population growth and climate change could tax water supplies.

The deal and the criticism of the opponents

Poland Spring is a brand of bottled water manufactured originally in Poland, in the U.S. state of Maine. It is a subsidiary of Nestlé – the largest food and beverage company in the world – and sold in the United States. Today, Poland Spring is the 3rd best-selling bottled water brand in the U.S. with meanwhile the water is derived from multiple sources in the state of Maine including Evergreen Spring in Fryeburg.

In Fryeburg, the company has operated since 1997 under a contract with no time limits and no cap on the amount of water that can be withdrawn from the aquifer. The new contract, which will soon take effect, caps water withdrawals at 603,000 gallons per day but also provides the town with $12,000 a month from Nestle, which will lease one well, a two-acre plot and some equipment. It gives Poland Spring permission to take the small town of Fryeburg’s groundwater for the next 25 years for their own profit. The deal could stretch to 45 years due to built-in extensions.

“With the changes we are witnessing in our climate, increasing global water insecurity, and industry polluting freshwater resources with little accountability… corporate control over drinking water resources for profit aligns us on a collision course with local water security.”

– Nickie Sekera

The maine law – an antiquated relic

Maine has what’s called “absolute dominion” laws with respect to groundwater, which, as Sekera put it, “basically equates to whoever has the biggest straw wins. So you own the property, you own all the water mining rights under your property. And it doesn’t protect us from global water predators such as Nestlé.” The law is essentially an antiquated relic, because it does not account for underwater reservoirs being connected with each other

or to surface water. Sekera criticized the original decision, saying that regulators should not approve long-term contracts for groundwater purchases. “It is not within the PUC’s purview to consider long-term environmental impacts of water mining on Maine’s aquifers, and because ‘the precautionary principle’ is not considered, any burden of proof would befall on local citizens, which puts all of Maine at risk from over-extraction,” Sekera said.

An unusual process of handling the case

The group asked the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to consider specific parts of the Maine Public Utilities Commission’s decision but also the unusual process by which the case was decided. The case was unusual because of the withdrawal of all three regular commissioners and the public advocate from the case. Two of the commissioners recused themselves because they had worked on Nestlé matters in their previous work for law firms, and the third, an engineer, had worked for the company. Sadly, it was then up to Governor LePage, an early Trump supporter labeled by Politico as “America’s Craziest Governor” to appoint their interim replacements. LePage has recently survived efforts from Maine legislators to impeach him for “using his power to wrongly intimidate government and nonprofit organizations, and to bend them to his will.”

“Now in reality, because everything was presented and done through the eyes of conflicted commissioners, we should’ve gotten a completely new docket on this case. But that wasn’t granted, and he appointed two other alternate commissioners who were — you know — of similar leanings to the governor.”

– Nickie Sekera

“Today’s decision by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court paves the way for a private corporation to profit from a vital public resource for decades to come.”

– Nickie Sekera

It has been a long debate bewteen Nestlé and the residents of the town Fryeburg

Back then residents were also disappointed by the judges decisions. When Nestlé sued the residents of Freyburg for the fifth time and won. Back in May 2005, local residents were largely silent when multinational Nestlé Waters asked for permission to dig a well and extract water to be pumped underground to a silo in East Fryeburg. The silo would serve as a tanker-truck filling station to send the water on its way to a bottling facility. Selectmen issued the permit, and residents passed a tough ordinance a year later giving the town the right to shut the extraction operation down if it was shown to be harming the underlying aquifer. Since then, Fryeburg has been torn apart by the battle between “pro-” and “anti-Nestlé” forces and a series of lawsuits and appeals.

After Nestle built a nearby bottling plant, Nestlé – in this cause in the guise of Poland Springs water – wanted to drill a new well in nearby Denmark, ME, and pipe water to a water-loading station in a Fryeburg residential area. At first the town planning commission said yes, then reversed themselves due to impacts on the town: noise, traffic, pollution, etc. To say Nestlé was unhappy is an understatement. They’ve sued and appealed the town five times. Watch the video and see how things

were going on. (Please take into consideration that the following videos were published in the past and therefore some statements are no longer current.)

“I’d gather Nestle’s goal isn’t so much a legal victory as a financial one; repeated litigation serves the dual purposes of bankrupting small towns – and serves as a warning to opponents who are considering fighting the world’s largest food and beverage multinational. While the little town of Fryeburg, Maine isn’t the only example, it’s fast becoming (sadly) one of the most extreme. “

– Stop Nestle Waters

5th lawsuit in favor of Nestlé

After 4 permit refusals of the court, the 5th lawsuit – concerning, among others, the planned 2nd pump station in Fryeburg – went up to the high court of the state of Maine. It was a long debate between Nestle and the residents of Fryeburg, but in the end, the town defeated. Nestlé won the trial. Only the right to limit the number of truck loads was given to the residents – 36,000 additional loads for now. People in Fryeburg are disappointed.

“It’s very difficult to speak out publicly because it sometimes costs people their jobs.“

– Nickie Sekera

“People realized what a foolish deal this was. But because they had their tentacles already so deep into our community, it was pretty ripe for this to happen.”

– Nickie Sekera