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Maine’s Legislature voted down a invoice that might have restricted large-scale pumping of groundwater within the state. Poland Spring, the bottled-water large, had lobbied aggressively towards the measure.
The proposal would have positioned a 10-year restrict on large-scale water-extraction contracts, a restriction that the invoice’s supporters mentioned would defend Maine’s valuable groundwater at a time when water ranges are falling throughout the nation. It didn’t cross on Thursday by a 21-to-12 vote within the State Senate.
Poland Spring, a serious presence in Maine, attracts water from eight places across the state to bottle and promote. It’s attempting to lock in a brand new contract of as much as 45 years to pump water in Lincoln, a former mill city.
BlueTriton — which owns Poland Spring and different main bottled-water manufacturers, together with Arrowhead and Deer Park — lobbied towards the modifications. Final yr, The New York Instances reported that the corporate wrote, and circulated amongst legislators, a proposed modification that might have gutted the invoice.
BlueTriton is backed financially by the non-public fairness funds One Rock Capital Companions and Metropoulos & Co., which paid $4.3 billion in 2021 to purchase Nestlé’s North American bottled-water enterprise.
The invoice ultimately made it to the complete Legislature, the place BlueTriton continued its lobbying. For instance, one flyer circulated by a Poland Spring lobbyist to lawmakers famous that the state’s public advocate’s workplace had mentioned that it inspired native water utilities “to enter into agreements to promote water each time it’s price efficient to take action.” Nonetheless, William S. Harwood, Maine’s public advocate, mentioned in an e-mail interview that he supported the 10-year restrict. An earlier model of the invoice had known as for a seven-year restrict.
In response to questions, BlueTriton mentioned it stood by the statements within the round, calling it a “a fact-based explanatory doc.” The corporate additionally mentioned it had “a devoted workforce of geologists, hydrogeologists, and engineers who work carefully with state and native water businesses and environmental organizations to guard and preserve water as a renewable useful resource.”
The invoice was voted down within the Maine State Home and the Senate, with Republicans voting towards it, together with a number of Democrats. Margaret M. O’Neil, a Democrat from Saco, in Southern Maine, who sponsored the invoice, mentioned, “Mainers don’t need Poland Spring to lock our communities into unhealthy offers, and positively not unhealthy offers that final for many years.”
Mark Lawrence, a Democrat who headed the committee that thought of the invoice and voted towards it within the State Senate, and Trey Stewart, the Republican Senate minority chief who additionally voted towards it, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
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