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Poland Spring Test Wells Pulled from Shapleigh

August 04, 2009 - SHAPLEIGH -- Nestle Waters North America's Poland Spring subsidiary finished removing the last of more than a dozen test and monitoring wells near the border of Shapleigh and Newfield on Friday, a Poland Spring official confirmed.

Mark Dubois, the company's natural resource manager, said the decision followed the end of unsuccessful negotiations with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to tap into an underlying aquifer for commercial bottled-water production.

"We weren't able to come to an arrangement with the department, so we are not going to be pursuing that site," said Dubois.

The wells were located off the Mann Road on state-owned land within the 4,000-acre Vernon Walker Wildlife Management Area. Dubois said sites for production wells were not chosen, although a parcel across the road and owned by the town of Shapleigh had been considered.

"We never got that far," he said.

Public opposition to Poland Spring drawing water from the area culminated in Shapleigh and Newfield enacting "rights-based ordinances" this past winter prohibiting large-volume, commercial water extraction. Those moves followed a six-month moratorium on such activity that Shapleigh voters imposed last September.

Dubois said there had been about 16 wells at the Mann Road site, which ranked as a "marginally good" source overall. Residents objected to the wells having being drilled as early as 2006 without significant public notice, although state authorized the move.

A statement issued last week by the local group Protect Our Water and Wildlife Resources said its members were glad to learn the wells were removed, and that opposition became "widespread, prolonged and overwhelming" after Poland Spring went public with its plans last year.

"This is an example of local control at its best," said the group's leader, Shelly Gobeille, in the statement. "All the citizens whose votes led to this result deserve congratulations, and local state Rep. Jim Campbell merits special thanks for his diligence in working with state agencies and Nestle to effect the wells' removal in a timely fashion."

Dubois said Poland Spring is prepared to move on, and that it's routine for the company to abandon about six to 10 potential extraction sites each year for various reasons. "Several hundred thousand dollars a year" in revenue was turned down at the Shapleigh/Newfield site, he added, but the aquifer will still be there if and when public sentiment shifts.

Southern Maine has become a tough place for Poland Spring to find suitably protected sources of water because so many people now live along watersheds and above aquifers, according to Dubois, and now the recession is also cutting demand.

"With the economy like it is, we probably won't be searching out new sites like we used to," he reported.

Dubois, however, said Poland Spring would continue to work on developing a water source near Branch Brook in Wells.

"That's one resource that we'll still be keeping our eyes on," he noted.

By Johnathan Hunt | Posted: Thursday, July 30, 2009, www.keepmecurrent.com


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