municipal/ public water vs private taking... / bottle water wars....

[bull]

OK, This is the story...
I live in sterling mass, The town of clinton mass owns a 500-600 acre property with a surface water resivoiur system (impounded river) on said land.... This resiviour system was a public drinking water supply for the town of clinton until the 1960's at which time it was decommisssioned and set aside in reserve....... The property is withing the bound of Sterling and has no boarder with town of clinton.
in the 1800's it took an act of state legislation to create a land taking forcing the land owners to sell their land to the town of clinton for the implied purpose of a public water supply..*(Today eminant domain law)*.......
Now the 2008 version *( google the many stories)* Sterling/Clinton/ Nestle...... The town of clintonhas entertained Nestle waters, to study and now aquire permits for the sale of water to Nestle... Note "Spring water doesn't come from resiviours". There is a huge underground lake"aquifer" under said land and the intend to install gravel wells and pump from the aquifer....

Does anyone have any knowlege regarding these kinds of acitvities.

Also this situtation started back in 2002 with other land agreements between the state and the town of clinton and has been discussed by political officials in closed "executive sessions" over that period of time..... I will add more as time goes on if this takes off !!!!   Thankyou in advance, all info is welcome Pro and con....

[sprucebunny]

Exactly the same thing is going on with the same company in Fryeburg Maine.

I believe that water is the gold of the future.

[musikwerke]

And with Poland "Spring" in Maine too.

[bull]

Poland springs is in the dumper Nestle owns them!!!

This is the town of sterlings last aquifer and three towns have the ability to draw from it know. The weekee peekee has been held in reserve... our other aquifer the Still water river aquifer which is the head waters of the Wachusett Resivouir and is the present Sterling public waster supply, agravel well system that is pumped to three differnt large water tanks in town. 
The Wachusett is part of the Boston MWRA system under the direction of DCR formerly The MDC.

[Ron Wenrich]

Spring water or source water comes from a spring.  Purefied water is glorified tap water that has been treated to remove minerals, and be treated with ultraviolet light.

Dasani by Coca Cola is a purefied water.  Pure Life by Nestle is source water and Aquarel by Nestle is mixed source water, meaning coming from several springs.  Source water is cheaper to produce than purefied water.  I would think shipping comes into the equation.

I'm thinking that bottled water is on the way out.  People are starting to rail against all those plastic bottles, and Brita has come out with a way to make purefied water out of the tap.

[Don_Papenburg]

All public deals should be  discused in open meetings   .   Sue the Bass toids
There should be no need for "executive sessions" with government dealings.

[Dale Hatfield]

We had a local limestone quarry dig a pit and hit a natural water feature that flooded the pit.So in his loss of lime stone as they couldnt pump it ut as fast as it poured in. He had it tested. Pure good clean water in a valley that is tainted with saltwater.His thoughts were  tap into the water and make it a village co-op  so we could have water . The loops and hoops from the epa prevented  the local water from being ever put in use. We now have lake water pumped to us that has cnacer causeing agents in it. When we had pure water from a limestone base. I drove out to the pit/lake this summer when local farm ponds were feet low this one was running a full stream out the dam just like the day the pit flooded. I wish that the Gov didnt help me so much.

[SwampDonkey]

Shipping killed all that nonsense up here. There is a fish hatchery that started out with a bunch of aquifers on the bank of the river as the water source. Then they went into the bottled water business. They were making $1M in monthly sales, but were $30,000 a month in the hole from shipping costs. I'd have to have some pretty pour water to be drinking mine out of a plastic bottle. They pay over $1 a bottle for 1/2 a litre. Some people just buy stuff because it looked cool on TV. Those high caffeine drinks are another one, about $3.50 for 125 ml? To each their own, but I don't get it. The power of advertising I guess.  :D

[WH_Conley]

Kinda goes against the grain to pay a buck for water. I have worked jobs before where they bought it by the case and dropped in a cooler with ice, mostly because the company was paying and the people that were supposed to do it were too lazy to clean a cooler properly.

[logwalker]

Most designer water goes for more than Gas at the pump. Go figure.

[bull]

The companies sucking out the water are paying the land owner an average of .008 cents a gallon
and then averaging over $ 3.00 a gallon bottled.....

[Sprucegum]

We got a sale on now - I can buy beer cheaper than water  ;D  ???   :

[SwampDonkey]

Mine only costs as much as the wattage drawn by the pump to pull it out of the ground. ;D

[farmerdoug]

But SD, you cannot drink that water.  It is bad for you.  You have to have it from a bottle. : :D :D

I have heard that before you know. ;)

[SwampDonkey]

You know me and plastic.  >:(


The plastics industry has just put another glass company out of business. You know my grandmother kept those old 1 gallon glass jars for decades. Glass milk bottles always got returned to be reused. Plastic just goes in the rubbage, then we buy more plastic to hold the plastic.  : And yes I even have plastic containers because I can't get glass containers.

[thecfarm]

Water is a BIG business here in Maine.I'm only about an hour from Poland Spring-Nestle plant.Alot is going on.They are and want to truck water from at least 2 differant places that I know of.I think more,but can't remember.The water issue is always in the news.They go into a small town and want to draw 50 trailer truck loads a day out of the ground.These small towns don't want the noise of the trucks coming and going all day and night.there are always plenty of meetings about the traffic.At this rate the water table will have to drop.

[bull]

THE WATER TABLE IS MY BIGGEST ISSUE, Im on the top of the Hill 245 feet above the proposed well sites my well is 220 feet deep, do the math.... won't take long for me to loose water....

[johncinquo]

Nestle is here in my area and a lot of the local people are constantly taking them to court because of the limited ground water available now.   The story is they are pulling out less than what can be replaced  with 1" of rain per day.   It doesnt rain 1" every day, so I still dont see how that arguement stands up.

I met with the State rep for our area last month and discussed several topics.  We have a $0.10 deposit on carbonated beverages here in MI.  Driving down the road you dont see a single pop can, but you see bottled water everywhere.  While I HATE returning the cans, I hate seeing plastic bottles everywhere more.

If you drill for oil or gas, you pay a royalty to the state for every gallon or barrel of oil you pull out.  Water is a natural resource, owned by the public just as much as oil is.  How can a private enterprise come in, draw out a publicly owned natural resource, sell it and make a profit, and not pay anything back to the public?   It was calculated that if they paid a nickel for every gallon they pulled out we would no no state deficit any longer, all the school projects, road projects, and the criminals (politicians) pet projects could be funded as well. 

[thecfarm]

Quite a few years ago I did not think it was a big deal pumping water out of the ground,BUT that was before they started to do it in more than one location and the amount has gone up ALOT.It wasn't much at one time.
john,just to touch on the bottle deposit alittle.Almost any thing in the state of Maine drinkable has a 5 ¢ deposit on it,except for milk.A gallon of OJ has it.A quart or half gallon of apple juice does.Water too.All that stuff has it.

[SwampDonkey]

We pay $0.10 and get $0.05 back.

[Tom]

Where's your government spending all the cash, Swamp Donkey?

[SwampDonkey]

Figuring out ways to gather more taxes, paying for studies we already know the outcomes of, roads, health care, schools, waste management, investing in non viable companies and all the usual inefficiencies that trail along.   ;D