Lakefront Property Owners Pay Attention to the Pressure on Water

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Lakefront Property Owners Pay Attention to the Pressure on Water

Lakefront Property Owners Pay Attention to the Pressure on Water

Inviting Blue Water of Lovewell Pond, Fryeburg, Maine

by Leigh Macmillen Hayes

Maine lakefront property owners choose to purchase property here because of the natural beauty of this state. Water is the reason for much of this beauty. Nickie Sekera of Common Water Justice, a growing network on the Maine/NH border determined to secure rights and accessibility to our groundwater through education/action for future generations, wrote an article in the Maine Lakes News Digest about Maine’s antiquated ‘absolute dominion’ groundwater laws. States Nickie,  “It [groundwater laws] leaves little protection for our most valuable resource through bulk water extraction and displacement.”



In the western Maine towns of Fryeburg, Denmark, Brownfield and Lovell, there is a large aquifer.  “Aquifer groundwater levels need to be maintained for our property values because they strongly affect lake levels, our ability to draw from our wells and benefit healthy forests, wildlife and farmlands,” writes Nickie.
She goes on to tell us that “in 2012, the Nestlé Corporation of Switzerland (owner of Poland Spring brand water) and local municipal water supplier (Fryeburg Water Company) sought from Maine’s Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) a 25-year exclusive contract to extract and export a minimum of 75 million gallons annually of drinking water from the aquifer. In past years they have extracted as much as twice that amount.  An automatic extension clause would allow Nestle to extract water an additional 20 years, carrying it to 2058.”
There is no assurance that we will experience rain or snowfall amounts sufficient to maintain the aquifer levels if this heavy ground water extraction continues. Drinking water quality and lake levels could be adversely affected. At a public hearing “held on March 7, 2013 to a standing room only crowd (scores of people were turned away),  no one that testified spoke in favor of the contract length.  Many others expressed concern over features of the contract that clearly favored Nestlé, the more powerful party, over the citizens of Fryeburg,” says Nickie.
“Two of the three MPUC commissioners overseeing this case were found to have significant conflicts of interest as both had done paid consulting work for Nestlé prior to their appointments and painstakingly took many months of public pressure to push Chairman Thomas Welsh to recuse himself. Additionally, the MPUC refuses to factor in environmental or sustainability concerns in its decision-making and the hydro-geological report on the aquifer considered in this case is industry funded. The MPUC appeared ready to approve a 45-year contract without considering risk. The case is currently suspended and Nestlé’s contract proposal will need to be heard over again, perhaps by substitute Commissioners.”
As lakefront property owners, you are vigilant about protecting your body of water from phosphorus runoff and invasive water plants. Nickie says, “The same vigilance may be needed now to prevent bulk drinking water exporters from attempting to reduce water quality or deplete their lakes. We can no longer trust state agencies alone to ensure that the water we have always depended on and enjoyed will not be sold to corporations for export.”
Many Fryeburg residents feel they are losing say about how their drinking water is allocated. “The current market for bottled water is exponentially increasing due to aggressive marketing and industry contaminating groundwater sources. Our 2-lane secondary roads are busy with Nestlé’s Poland Spring 8000+ gallon tanker trucks 24 hours a day, infringing on our sense of peace. Nestlé has sued the town of Fryeburg for trying to limit this traffic.” We can actually tell the time by the passing of these trucks–they pass by every fifteen minutes.
Nickie reminds us that “water, like air, belongs to all of us. Its highest use value includes maintaining the beautiful lakes, wetlands and streams created by Nature that sustains us. We can preserve our priceless water resources by creating a groundwater rights law that states that water, like air, belongs to  us all.”
For more information on this case: Portland Press Herald
To learn more about lakefront properties for sale in Fryeburg, click on the green box above.
To learn more about the Fryeburg area, check out these blog links below.
Lovewell Pond, Fryeburg, Maine: Home to Fishing, Boating and Fighting
Time Stands Still on Kezar Pond in Fryeburg, Maine
The Romance of the Covered Bridge Found at Hemlock Bridge in Fryeburg, Maine

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