AUGUSTA – The Land Use Regulation Commission voted 5-1 Monday to approve a Poland Spring Water Co. application to build a pumping station in Dallas Plantation.
The permit allows Poland Spring to withdraw an estimated 184 million gallons of water from two wells in this Franklin County township and truck it to a bottling facility elsewhere.
LURC staff submitted an opinion last week recommending that the commissioners grant the permit, saying that the water bottling company’s application satisfied LURC requirements that the project not create any “undue adverse effect on existing uses, scenic character, and natural and historic resources in the area.”
The commissioners agreed. LURC staff member Marcia Spencer-Famous said Monday that after lengthy discussion on many of the most hotly disputed issues, most notably about the effect of more traffic on surrounding communities, five commissioners voted to approve the application, with only Rebecca Kurtz, a Rangeley Lakes area resident, voting in opposition.
Tom Brennan, natural resources manager for Nestle Waters North America, of which Poland Spring is a subsidiary, said Monday that he was pleased and excited the company had won approval.
“Well, you know, I think the vote speaks for itself. We had a good application,” he said, adding he thinks LURC staff and commissioners put a great deal of work into reviewing the application.
“I look forward to starting the project,” he said. “We had a lot of support from people regionally,” who see the pumping station as an integral part of Poland Spring’s current plan to build a bottling plant in Kingfield, Brennan said. He was speaking on a cell phone on his way home from meeting with Kingfield Planning Board members about the bottling plant application the company plans to file sometime in the future.
SAD 58 Superintendent Quenten Clark attended Monday’s LURC hearing in support of Poland Spring, Brennan said, as did Farmington Town Manager Richard Davis.
But the now-LURC-approved pumping station has seen fierce opposition from people living close to the proposed site, including the town of Rangeley, the Rangeley Water District, and the Dallas Plantation assessors, who were all intervenors at the Nov. 25 public hearing.
Local people objected to the pumping station primarily because of fear that more traffic from the pump station to the unspecified bottling plant would affect the character of the region, which is home to many businesses that rely heavily on tourism.
During Monday’s discussion, Rebecca Kurtz raised “quite a few good questions regarding concerns for traffic, the sustainability of the resource, and/or water use in general, pretty much the same concerns that had been brought up in the public hearing,” Spencer-Famous said, but was unable to convince her co-board members.
According to a LURC news release, commissioners approved the permit because “the proposed project would encourage resource-based enterprises that further the jurisdiction’s tradition of multiple uses without diminishing its principal values.”
“The approved water withdrawal facility and associated trucking, and the proposed monitoring plans, if carried out in compliance with the conditions of the permit, should not have an undue adverse impact to the surrounding area and its natural resources,” LURC Director Catherine Carroll said.
Rangeley Town Manager Perry Ellsworth was circumspect in his response to the decision. “I guess the town of Rangeley gave it its best shot. We presented the best case for the town of Rangeley we could. Now the selectmen will have to review the outcome and see if they want to go any further” to oppose the pumping station, he said.
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