Bottlemania - Elizabeth Royte [27]
For months after the pump test, the hydrologic team will continue to measure stream depth and flow rates, plugging real numbers into their computer model. In theory, the more numbers that go in, the stronger the model. But still, a model isn’t reality. No hydrogeologist can say with absolute certainty what this magnitude of extraction will mean for the environment years or even decades into the future. (And attorneys don’t like to take cases that depend on proof ten years down the road.) The literature of hydrogeologic modeling is peppered with such words as optimization, probabilistic, and conceptual. And the history of dried-up springs and salt water seeping into sweet water is littered with models that predicted adequate flow.
“Modelers always argue with each other, they talk about ‘trends’ and ‘possibilities’ because no one can actually see it,” Stefan Jackson says. “They say there’s four hundred million gallons of headroom in the aquifer, but however well formulated, it’s only an assumption.”
“Some hydrogeologists will say whatever they’re paid to say,” Robert Glennon, speaking generally of the field, tells me later. “I call them hydrostitutes.”
I spend another hour with Fortin in the woods. It’s pleasant work in a pleasant place: 160 acres of forest and field, home to deer and turkeys, coyotes and bobcats. Out here in the fresh air, there is no hint of the strife behind the permitting process or the high-emotional battles that have accompanied other new operations, either in Maine or across the country. The stakes are high: already Nestlé is pumping water from Pierce Pond township, about twenty-three miles north of here, and from Dallas Plantation, thirty miles west. Both sources will feed water to the Kingfield plant.
“It would make more sense to tanker the water to Hollis than bottle it here,” Brennan tells me at the plant site, where bulldozers roar in the background. So why build here? I ask. “Because there’s so much controversy over these waterdevelopment projects. If we want a tanker loading station with one hundred trucks, and we don’t leave any economic benefit behind—any jobs, any health insurance—it’s gonna be an unpleasant experience.” It already is unpleasant, over in Fryeburg. “To do it a second time, it’s gonna be even more unpleasant,” Brennan continues. “So we wanted a bottling plant somewhere in this region.”
Brennan had invited me to Kingfield to see how scientists determine sustainability. It was similar, in a way, to the reason I had visited Miles Waite, who, by measuring and sampling Lovewell Pond, is trying to determine if Howard Dearborn’s claim—that the pumping is unsustainable—is true. But Brennan also wanted me to get a feel for a community that, after sober examination of the pros and cons, decided to welcome the company. When Kim Jeffery, the CEO of Nestlé Waters North America, announced it would build a plant in Kingfield, he said, “It has taken a couple of years, but that is how trust is built. When you have a project that takes an extended period of time, where expectations are met and people do what they say they will do, then you have a very strong foundation.” Brennan echoes that sentiment when he tells me, “Kingfield is a great example of a community that took a sensible and comprehensive approach to economic development.” Fryeburg, of course, is just