Bottlemania - Elizabeth Royte [24]
The bottled-water industry claims that water for bottling is a minute portion of total water use. And it’s true: in the United States, the industry takes only 0.02 percent of the total groundwater withdrawn each year. But it takes that in the same few places, not spread out over the globe, and it moves those gallons to other watersheds, unlike the gallons pumped by a local utility, which waters a community that discharges into the same watershed. A liter of Poland Spring gulped in Pomfret, Vermont, or even Poland, Maine, isn’t coming back to the trout fingerlings at the Shy Beaver hatchery.
Moreover, with the market for bottled water continuing to grow, and sources of freshwater becoming ever more precious, companies are constantly on the hunt for more of it. Nestlé is already seeking new sources in upstate New York and Massachusetts, among other states, the better to meet the demands of my friends and neighbors in the tristate area. Other bottlers are on the prowl as well.
Over the years, in towns across the country, the message from Nestlé has been the same: “There’s no evidence of environmental harm.” And once again, it’s true: it’s extremely difficult to prove without a doubt that groundwater pumping has dried up a well, river, or wetland. It’s easy to blame drought, another pumper, beavers, a snowless winter, or anything at all. Wells and ponds dry up even when there’s no commercial extraction. Adverse effects to stream systems, and their related wetlands, occur slowly and are affected by many factors. The movement of groundwater, and its exact relationship to surface water, is imperfectly known.
“If the water table goes down, Poland Spring will say, ‘How do you know it’s us?’ ” Jackson says. “It’s a classic defense—you can’t prove a proximate cause.” In Hollis, Poland Spring drilled new wells for two homeowners; locals say they went dry, but the company says they failed for mechanical reasons. “People around here are freaked-out: there’s an irrational fear that the water will be gone or contaminated,” Jackson says. It doesn’t help that Tom Brennan, the face of Nestlé Waters in Fryeburg, is said to be standoffish. His idea of reassuring concerned citizens is to produce additional data sets.
Jackson ignores the frequent ringing of his office and cell phones. He unscrews the top of a giant pretzel jar, apparently to eat his lunch, but can’t stop talking long enough to put a single rod in his mouth. “I’m really starting to think about this whole water thing as an environmental justice issue. Nestlé is pretending they’re small and local”—indeed, Poland Spring’s regional identification is essential to its popularity: its slogan is “What it means to be from Maine”—“but they’re indifferent to the needs of people they’re affecting. It’s a corporation versus individuals, real people and local communities.”
What if a thorough study showed that pumping actually is sustainable, I ask. “The pumping may be sustainable, it may be ecologically fine,” Jackson says in a tone of frustration, “but that doesn’t necessarily make it the right thing to do. Why are they suing the town of Fryeburg over the tanker station?” (Nestlé went to court because Fryeburg’s board of appeals, propelled by a group called Western Maine Residents for Rural Living, overturned the planning board’s initial approval of the station.)
The case is grinding its way through the legal system, but Jackson doesn’t expect the protracted chess game to end with the decision. “If they lose their permit to tanker water out of town, their lawyers will claim it’s malicious and undue enforcement. They will claim the pumping is sustainable, and that no one else is being scrutinized like this. They’ll gum up the process for a