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Maine’s Legislature voted down a invoice that may have restricted large-scale pumping of groundwater within the state. Poland Spring, the bottled-water big, had lobbied aggressively in opposition to 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 treasured groundwater at a time when water ranges are falling throughout the nation. It didn’t move on Thursday by a 21-to-12 vote within the State Senate.
Poland Spring, a serious presence in Maine, attracts water from eight areas across the state to bottle and promote. It’s making an attempt 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 in opposition to the adjustments. Final yr, The New York Instances reported that the corporate wrote, and circulated amongst legislators, a proposed modification that may have gutted the invoice.
BlueTriton is backed financially by the personal 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 total 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 at any time when it’s price efficient to take action.” Nevertheless, 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 referred to 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 intently with state and native water companies 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 in opposition to 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 in opposition to it within the State Senate, and Trey Stewart, the Republican Senate minority chief who additionally voted in opposition to it, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
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