I was so looking forward to your Poland Spring article (“Poland Spring reaches high water mark,” June 26), especially because Nestle is a major advertiser and I wondered how the Telegram would handle a negative article about them, but was I asking too much for it to be factual?

I was flabbergasted when I was only into the second paragraph and read: “Bottled water is merely a different version of something that every American connected to a municipal water system already gets for free.”

Really? Free? What la-la-land does this writer live in where people get water for free? And that is the point that the article missed so badly.

Water from our tap is not free. We not only pay for the water (sometimes in higher rent), but we pay even more for its disposal, and that is the very reason why it is unfair and unjust to allow commercial enterprises to suck water out of our aquifers without reimbursing the people of Maine for the costs we have incurred keeping it pristine.

Every Mainer spends thousands of dollars every year to keep our aquifers pure, and that can grow to 10 or 20 times more if your sewer line, septic or well needs repair. You cannot argue that it is no different than minerals being mined or taking gravel from your property and that’s because water flows from property to property and nobody owns it. Even when mining or removing soil, property owners are not allowed to “waste” the resources they are taking and must keep it sustainable.

Nestle is pulling out 800 million gallons of water from Maine every year and that is “wasting,” just as they have already done in Brazil, at what was once called the “Circuit of Waters,” which Nestle destroyed – and they didn’t pay a penny for it there or here.

Bradford Norris

Cape Elizabeth

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