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Maine Town Takes a Stand: Closes Tap on Water Privatization
Residents ignore the Board of Selectmen's position and vote to stop Poland Spring – and others – from harvesting their water.
Shapleigh residents have banned companies from drawing or selling its water.
During a special town meeting Saturday morning, residents voted 114 to 66 to adopt the ban drafted by Protecting Our Water and Wildlife Resources, which had opposed Poland Spring's efforts to test, draw, bottle and market the town's water.
The ban had been opposed by the town's Board of Selectmen, which had favored instead a set of regulations on drawing water in the town that will be on the warrant for the regular town meeting on March 14.
"The problem in Shapleigh is that all three selectpeople want Nestle (Poland Spring's parent company) in here," said Shelly Gobeille, one of the leaders of POWWR. "This vote says they can't come in."
In September, residents adopted a six-month moratorium on water testing, which was seen as a precursor to Poland Spring's plans to set up a pumping operation. The town's planning board used the time to work on rules and regulations for drawing the town's water, but POWWR wanted to ban all major water extraction operations.
When the Board of Selectmen refused to put POWWR's proposed ban on extraction on the town meeting warrant - arguing that two legal opinions said it was unconstitutional - proponents circulated a petition that led to the special town meeting.
Gobeille said POWWR is now concerned that the selectmen could seek to derail the ban, but Bill Hayes, one of the three selectmen, said he's inclined to let the ban go into force without the selectmen getting involved. However, he said, others could challenge its legality.
"The townspeople voted to enact it," Hayes said. "If they want to incur the legal expenses of defending it if it's challenged, that's up to them."
Hayes said that if Poland Spring wants to draw the town's water, it would be better to regulate the company's operations and make sure the town benefits financially. He said talks with the water bottler never got to the point where a dollar figure was discussed, but the amount the town would earn "would have been significant. This would have been an opportunity to defer" some property taxes.
Mark Dubois, natural resource manager for Poland Spring, said he was disappointed by the vote at the special town meeting.
"It's kind of disconcerting as a company with 400 jobs right now in York County," he said. "It's our home, too, and we're very discouraged we can't have a basic discussion about what we do and do well."
Dubois said the company draws water from nine sites in the state now and has sufficient supplies of water for its current needs. He said the company would have been looking to draw water from Shapleigh in 2011 or 2012, but noted that it takes a long time to gain the state and local permits that are needed.
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24 Comments so far
Show AllImagine that - a population that actually recognises the inestimable value of water over a "reduction in property taxes" ... Will wonders never cease!
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
This is an excellent example of locals standing up to privatization and this is the kind of lesson that needs to be learned across the nation. Great job Maine. Someday, our state will learn from you and both states will have more in common besides splitting off electoral votes.
Yay, Citizens! We in Maine have lots of water, but it's being depleted by Poland Springs (Nestle's) and other water thieves, as well as contaminated by pesticides and industrial chemicals. Citizens CAN win, as this shows. We here in Downeast Maine fight the so-called "wild" blueberry growers as they aerially spray extremely toxic poisons over us all every season so they don't have to actually walk and work the land........their profits uber alles, but we're gaining on them...........
DoSomething,
Good luck in your struggle against the "wild" blueberry growers. Having spent dozens of summers in Maine with my children picking REAL "wild" blueberries for pies, muffins, etc., it makes me sad to think of what they're doing -- to the land, to the people and animals, AND to the blueberries themselves.
I also hope more towns refuse to give up their water -- to Nestle of any other conscienceless profiteer. (Maybe if towns also banned bottled water, ALL of those companies would go out of business.
rosie2731
If the property on which you pay taxes is made worthless by a lack of clean water for the local citizens, what good are lower taxes? Once again, we are privatizing profit, while socializing the costs...not a good deal in my humble opinion...
Why won't these selectmen simply reveal where their bread has been buttered, and by whom...
Good for you! I am so glad to hear this. I hope that all over the country, people will stand up to the corporate thieves who want to sell everything that has been given to us.
Kitty Lady
It is good to see that people are finally waking up to the exploitation of corporation multinationals.
Those thieves from Nestle have stolen and exploited enough.
racom40
Towns people, give yourself a big pat on the back. Privatization of natural resources is simply throwing money away. Whats next, charging us to breathe?
Well, they charge for the air - got a cell phone?
But a big way out of reliance on oil and electricity from the electrical companies that's been covered up big time; a way that you can use; need the parts and about 30 minutes of your time. I put links on my main page - www.christiankeys.ca
Right on, Shapleigh!
No community can spare any water for corporations to sell. a lot of water is needed to keep it potable after the runoff from highways, parking lots, and chemicals.
I don't like soft drinks, but I will drink almost anything except bottled water.
A nice little victory but let's get real. Without legislation banning the resale of groundwater by any except utilities for their customers, these folks could own one acre and suck an aquifer half dry.
I didn't want to give them any ideas, but this is a fact. Groundwater is the ONLY source of water for country dwellers. Country dwellers don't count for much.
I have never heard how those people in the mountains North of New York feel about all their water being diverted to make possible a major city on a salt water swamp. Poor people don't count for much.
Maps still show the Colorado River emptying into the gulf of Mexico. Of course it doesn't anymore. The goddamn fountains in Las Vegas have to run even if poor farmers starve. Subsistence farmers don't count for much.
Overpopulation is a problem that needs to be addressed. Starting with rich people with political power. A new political and economic system will replace what we have now, and the sooner the better.
The Corporatists will pump Maine dry and send it to the Arabs.
Where is Pat Lamarche? Oh yeah, I forgot, probably promoting that Casino again.
{for the right price of course}
I have a way to help your Tax issue - Tax poland springs on every drop of our water that they now take out of Maine. Just last week one of their contract drivers wrecked a rig full of water on the way to the big city. For his sake he did not get hurt - maybe the fact that he was over the .08 Maine limit and had no drivers license - Allegedly!
One of the people at my permaculture gardening group here in Maine posted information on "Democracy School" a few days ago. Democracy School is:
"The Essential Citizen Training that Supports the Community’s Right to Local Control over Issues of Public Health, Safety and Welfare and Social Justice
An essential 8 hour intensive for community activists, selectmen and concerned citizens who want to enact positive, fundamental protection for their communities and environment. Democracy School explores the limits of conventional regulatory organizing and offers a new organizing model that helps citizens confront the usurpation by corporations of the rights of communities, people, and the earth.
Maine and New Hampshire communities have become targets for corporate water mining. Where is the People’s voice in these decisions? Democracy School explores the Hidden Histories behind the peoples’ movements and local self – governance.
Discover how your community can assert it’s decision-making authority over the issues critical to the protection of your local public health safety and welfare."
You can read more about what the good folks in Shapleigh are doing here:
http://soh2o.org/?page_id=893
Here is a YouTube video with Linzey explaining what we are up against when we decide to take our government back from the corporations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYwP04LcCSE
Quoting from this article by Edward Murphy: "Bill Hayes, one of the three selectmen, said he's inclined to let the ban go into force without the selectmen getting involved. However, he said, others could challenge its legality.
"The townspeople voted to enact it," Hayes said. "If they want to incur the legal expenses of defending it if it's challenged, that's up to them."
If you watch the video you will learn, as I did, that if Poland Spring decides to sue, they can even sue for the amount they decide they lost while the folks from Shapleigh were were defending their right to ban them from selling their water.
The canard of "lost Jobs and revenue" is always waved around like a red flag when the Corporations do not get their way.
The facts are few people would be hired. The wages would be low. The water would be there, pumped out and then be gone and the Company then pick up and move elsewhwere to take someone elses water.
It good to see these voters look to the long term of their community .
The selectman of Shapleigh are examples of politicians putting their interests first instead of the good of it's people. What is more important than water? I hope more people are inspired by this vote to closely examine proposals put forward by our politicians as to what their real agenda might be. We have been screwed over for generations because we have been asleep at the switch. It's time we wake up and change the disastrous direction we're headed.
Bob Cronin
Mainers (aka Mainiacs) voted not to place a tax on the millions of gallons of Maine water that Poland Springs pumps every year. Of course the "may lose jobs" blackmail card was played heavily in the media. This was about as smart as if Alaskans choose not to take any oil revenue from the north slope output. I have been a Mainer for 27 years and I still shake my head.
Bob C., We in Maine NEVER vote to tax the water. The folks who tried to get enough of their neighbors to sign a "voter initiative" failed to get the #s. Not quite the same as having it on a Ballot.
Also 27 years dose not make you a Mainer, my folks have been here since 1756 and I am not sure we are!
For some very good and very OLD legal foundations for the battle against privatization, I would recommend Peter Linebaugh's book: The Magna Carta Manifesto. Water should never be privatized, any more than air or sunlight.
The documentary Flow also has excellent information.
WATCH OUT FOR STEALTH MANDATORY FLUORIDATION BILL PUSHED THROUGH STATE
LEGISLATURE
Industrial Hazardous Waste from the potash ferilizer companies is actually allowed to be relabeled as additives, and put in municipal water just because the nasty compund is mostly fluoride, even though it also has arsenic and lead.
Senator Collins is a strong component of water fluoridation, and seemsunwilling to look at the health effects of the stuff. Perhaps she is beguiled by ADA claims.
If your comunity is not already fluoridated, it is easier to keep it out than to get rid of it, despite the science of the harm it does.
So, read up on it at www.fluoridealert.org
and talk to your state representatives so that they have information other than what they get by the pid promtoers from the CDC. There is sixteen million in federal dollars flowing to the promotion of water fluoridation, with many convinced that it it a useful preventive measure.
Shapleigh might not be endangered by a mandatory fluoridation bill, usually aimed at communities with over 10,000 water customers. But other towns will have to put up money to get poisoned!
WATCH OUT FOR STEALTH MANDATORY FLUORIDATION BILL PUSHED THROUGH STATE
LEGISLATURE
Industrial Hazardous Waste from the potash ferilizer companies is actually allowed to be relabeled as additives, and put in municipal water just because the nasty compund is mostly fluoride, even though it also has arsenic and lead.
Senator Collins is a strong component of water fluoridation, and seemsunwilling to look at the health effects of the stuff. Perhaps she is beguiled by ADA claims.
If your comunity is not already fluoridated, it is easier to keep it out than to get rid of it, despite the science of the harm it does.
So, read up on it at www.fluoridealert.org
and talk to your state representatives so that they have information other than what they get by the pid promtoers from the CDC. There is sixteen million in federal dollars flowing to the promotion of water fluoridation, with many convinced that it it a useful preventive measure.
Shapleigh might not be endangered by a mandatory fluoridation bill, usually aimed at communities with over 10,000 water customers. But other towns will have to put up money to get poisoned!