Cameron Lorrain

Heather Printup

As lifelong Mainers, we have proudly worked for the company that makes the Poland Spring brand, one of Maine’s most iconic brands, for a combined total of nearly 50 years.

Our jobs have afforded us the opportunity to work for a company that cares deeply for the state and, more importantly, to raise our families in rural Maine communities. We love being in Maine and look forward to growing old in the state we call home.

During our tenure with Poland Spring, we have witnessed countless attempts at the Maine Legislature to threaten our industry. This year is no different.

We are disheartened by a group of bills that once again targets our company. One bill of concern is L.D. 1111 — a misguided proposal that would usurp the authority of water utilities to exercise their science-based stewardship of local water resources.

It limits any contract for the large-scale purchase of water, making it impractical and unaffordable for any large-scale water purchaser — including Poland Spring — to invest in infrastructure and plan future operations, thus eliminating the benefits to ratepayers of any offsets in prices.

Existing law already ensures a transparent public process for any contract for large-scale water withdrawal. It requires the Maine Public Utilities Commission to rigorously review and approve these contracts, ensuring ratepayers come first and local water resources remain managed for long-term sustainability.

This bill, if passed, and other proposed legislation would negatively impact Poland Spring operations and our Poland Spring colleagues.

It is truly unfortunate that activist groups continue to bombard our legislators with statements and comments about our company that simply are not true. For instance, we cannot collect as much water as we want from any spring that we choose. Nor can we dry up surrounding neighbors’ wells.

Our business is regulated. We have permits for all our water sources. Our water collection is limited to protect the ecosystems where we work.

We support this regulation. It would make no sense to invest millions of dollars in our local operations just to deplete the natural resources on which our business relies. This would undermine the success of our business and go against every value we hold as a company.

We are well-regulated by local communities, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. We provide data, collected by our natural resource team and third-party hydrogeologists to the communities in which we operate, to the state of Maine and publish annual water reports available at polandspring.com.

In a year, we use less than 0.01% of all groundwater in Maine.

In addition, we help conserve over 6,000 acres of land around our spring sites to ensure the sustainability of the resource and local environment. And while proper resource management is front and center of our business, being a valuable part of communities where we live and work is just as important. We donate hundreds of thousands of bottles of water and funds annually to public safety departments, charity events, schools, nonprofits and community organizations.

Poland Spring is an integral part of our state’s history, not just of our personal livelihoods. It is very difficult not to take these proposals personally.

Our state should be proud that nearly a thousand Mainers at our three bottling plants in Hollis, Poland and Kingfield work together to make Maine and Poland Spring synonymous with delicious water.

We ask the Maine Legislature to think about the crippling impact this legislation would have on our employees and our beloved state.

Cameron Lorrain is northeast vice president of technical and production with Poland Spring. Heather Printup is the company’s community relations manager.