Massive Moosehead Lake Real Estate Development

The Kennebec Journal reports:

State regulators on Wednesday endorsed Plum Creek's historic development plan for nearly 1,000 house lots, two large resorts and hundreds of thousands of acres of land conservation in the Moosehead Lake region.

Beyond water for drinking, bottling, agriculture and industry, there is water for recreation and there is an entire industry of recreational boat makers who want to keep it that way. This battle is probably not over, I'll follow closely.

Plum Creek began this project 4 years ago. We were at the height of the real estate boom and gas was $1.80 a gallon. Will they still have the stomach for this? Will their backers?



View Larger Map

Shapleigh Votes for Moratorium

The Boston Globe reports:

PORTLAND, Maine—Shapleigh voters, in a setback for bottler Poland Spring, imposed a six-month moratorium Saturday on the testing or large-scale extraction of water.

The vote was 204 to 38.

Maine Water Protests

Maine Today reports:

PORTLAND -- About 50 people turned out for an anti-bottled water protest in Tommy's Park in downtown Portland this afternoon.

The protest was mostly aimed at Poland Springs, which has met resistance in several York County towns this summer after proposing possible drilling on town-owned land.

Shapleigh residence vote this Saturday on the Poland Springs test drilling.

Kenebec Journal - Letter to the Editor

An interesting view in this letter, if we allow a few corporations to own all the water, we will end up where we are today with the oil companies.

Letter

Poland Springs vs. Shapleigh, ME- Update

The Portland Press Herald has an update on Poland Springs and Shapleigh. The issue is slightly confusing, but at it's heart is whether or not to let Poland Springs do test drilling. The town puts it to vote in 10 days.

Shockingly, what the town could get paid:

"the company did not want to pay any more than the rate it now pays the state at Range Pond: 0.6 cent per gallon, less transportation costs."

So at most, the town will be paid $1 for 170 gallons of water.

At Stop and Shop's home delivery page, they are selling Poland Springs 1 gallon bottles for $1.39, link.

Now obviously, there are drilling, delivery and filtering costs, Stop and Shop adds a margin on to it, etc....but, it's a long way from $1.39 to $0.006 per gallon. I'd like to see Poland Springs release more info on those costs. Transparency might help the situation. Without more information, the deal just kind of reeks.

USA Today Book Review: 'Bottlemania'

USA Today reviews a new book on the water business.

"Americans discard 30 billion to 40 billion water bottles a year"

Wow.

Organic Recycling Clashes with Streams

The Morning Sentinel reports on Winterwood Farm's crisis. Winterwood recycles organic waste through composting. They then sell that compost to garden centers around New England.

They have recently had issues with the DEP concerning high nitrogen run-off into a nearby stream. An ingredient in their compost is shellfish. Shellfish are high in nitrogen which makes for a great fertilizer, but a nasty pollutant when it ends up in streams at high concentrations.

The owner is stuck between a rock and hard place here.

Winterwood Farms website.

We'll have to follow this one. It's a case of a smart environmental business running into an environmental issue.

Poland Springs Moratorium put to the Ballot

From the Seacoastonline.com

"Selectmen Tuesday voted to include a proposed large-scale water extraction moratorium on the November ballot...Voters will see the proposed moratorium on the November ballot."