Should Poland Spring tap Rumford?: The lure of jobs, money and new pipes

RUMFORD — At the rate it’s growing, Poland Spring is going to need a fourth Maine bottling plant.

Janice Crawford hopes the company keeps Fryeburg in mind.

The Fryeburg selectwoman is a fan of Poland Spring and what it’s done for her town since it started drawing water there in 1997. She considers it a good corporate neighbor and she’d like the jobs a bottling plant would bring.

“It is one of the only large manufacturing-type opportunities that has come across our desk in years,” said Crawford, who believes the company will likely site a future plant next to a water source. “So that provides us with a little bit of an opportunity to maybe be in the running.”

“They’ve been very open and transparent and I think there’s enough checks and balances that I feel comfortable,” Crawford said.

Right now, Fryeburg is one of nine Maine sites from which Poland Spring draws spring water.

Rumford might be No. 10.

For the past year, Poland Spring has run tests on Rumford Water District property off Route 5, the site of the district’s primary well, currently used to supply water to the town.

“We have a decision to make, I think, before the New Year: Would a hydrogeologist look at it and say, ‘Yes, this is a good site?'” said Mark Dubois, a geologist and natural resource manager for Poland Spring. “All that peer review would happen next year, 2017.”

That’s if Rumford wants to talk and strike a long-term deal.

“It’s really up to the water district — they’re completely autonomous,” said Town Manager John Madigan, who’s neutral on the project. “They run their own show.”

The water district is made up of three trustees, all appointed by selectmen. They’ll ultimately vote a project up or down and either start the months-long process of local and state approval or stop the project in its tracks.

All three are also neutral for now, said water district superintendent Brian Gagnon.

“They’re looking at what’s best for the customer and for the town,” he said. “They’ll be taking everything into consideration.”

Candice Casey hopes they go for it.

“Another water customer is essential,” said the Rumford resident, who wants Poland Spring revenue to pay for a sorely needed water pipe upgrade. “Every time I get up at night to go to the bathroom and flush the toilet or get a drink of water, I say a little prayer. Sooner or later I’m going to turn that faucet on or I’m going to flush that toilet and that tank is not going to fill back up. I’m very realistic about the situation here in Rumford.”

According to Gagnon, if Poland Spring withdrew 100 million gallons of spring water a year in Rumford, it would pay the water district $178,804. (That’s 0.00178 cents a gallon, the district’s rate for a large-scale user.) Plus a lease fee. Plus town taxes.

At its six largest sites, Poland Spring drew anywhere from 106.9 million to 227.5 million gallons in 2015, according to state records.

To opponents’ concerns about the water district’s recent charter change: Gagnon said Poland Spring’s interest in the town had nothing to do with the district updating its 105-year-old charter with the state Legislature earlier this year.

Poland Spring didn’t ask for it and the water district didn’t do it to woo the company, he said.

“When we engaged counsel for the Poland Spring thing, our counsel obviously looks at your bylaws and sees what you have, and they found all these inconsistencies that should have been changed a long time ago,” Gagnon said.

He stands by its legality.

ADDRESSING HOLLIS’ TRUCK ISSUES

In Hollis, where Poland Spring has a well and bottling plant with 400 employees, state Rep. Don Marean said the company has brought jobs and community assistance, helping build ball fields and a new “community closet” donation space and giving thousands of bottles of water to recreational programs.

He lives across from one of the bottling plant entrances and, until retiring in 2009, ran a farm there with as many as 100 horses. He hasn’t experienced an issue with having enough water for his property then or now.

“They monitor that water table like crazy,” Marean said. “That’s their future; they aren’t going to drain the thing dry.”

(The company monitors 20 wells at private homes around the state to keep tabs on local impact; it’s willing to monitor 10 more in Rumford, according to Dubois.)

To opponents’ concerns about trucks and road wear-and-tear: Poland Spring has brought traffic to Hollis, which, Marean said, is a work in progress.

Marean sits on a trucking committee pulled together by Poland Spring several years ago after too many complaints arose about truckers driving off-route. Marean said he believes some of the truckers didn’t speak or read English, so they were getting lost. Some were using cheaper car GPS devices when a truck GPS device would have told them to avoid less-traveled roads.

“They’ve always had a truck plan from day one,” Marean said. “What they probably didn’t do as much as they do now is enforce the thing. Poland Spring went as far this summer as to get two or three pickup trucks, put their name on them, and have (their) people go on roving patrol, schooling the truckers on directions they should be going into and from the plant. And that helped some.”

The Hollis bottling plant opened in 2000. Marean’s noticed “a lot, lot, lot less traffic” where it doesn’t belong in the past six months.

Dubois, with Poland Spring, said it’s too early to talk truck routes or number of trucks in Rumford.

At some locations, Dubois said, Poland Spring has been required to help pay for local road projects, but “whether that would be part of a local permit in Rumford remains to be seen.”

Rich Crawford, assistant director for the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Project Development, said greater-than-anticipated truck traffic on a road can shorten its lifespan. How quickly it deteriorates is linked to underlying soil and drainage conditions.

Route 5, which borders the water district property in Rumford, is a state road on a low-priority maintenance schedule, getting attention now every seven years.

If it got worse faster, the state would be in to take a look, said Crawford, who also lives in Rumford.

“I just know with the current economic environment in that part of the state, I think any business opportunity to me is always welcome,” he said. “Sometimes you have to just deal with whatever ancillary issues come up if those turn into a reality.”

‘IT’S ALL DARK DOWN THERE’

About 20 factors are considered in determining the value of a spring site, Dubois said.

Access to power. Distance to the road. Distance to a factory. Taste. Ample flow.

“It’s pretty rare to find a good aquifer system (with robust springs),” he said. “If we don’t have a spring, we wouldn’t be here at all. If the aquifer’s not overflowing, it wouldn’t be one that we’re interested in.”

A host of geological reasons, including the sort of sand and gravel aquifer preferred by Poland Spring, make Rumford a strong candidate.

The company has been running 20-plus test wells on the Rumford Water District site looking at yields and confirming connections with a local spring. Later this month, Poland Spring will test one larger well at the most promising location, a more intense test that pumps water 24 hours a day for five to seven days and measures whether nearby water levels dip in response.

Dubois hopes to report those results to the community in late fall or early winter.

“The growth in the industry means we’d like to get one or two of these (new well sites) going,” he said. “If we can grow the permitted raw water that we have, we can start looking at more jobs and investment in the state as well.”

That would mean a new bottling plant — somewhere.

For now, the company’s focus is on Rumford, showing the science behind a potential well and determining what residents might like in exchange for them coming to town beyond money to the water district.

Poland Spring has given more than $6 million to Maine communities through its Good Neighbor Grant Program since 2000.

“You’ve got to find what’s important to the town,” Dubois said. Maybe it’s funds to a community center; maybe it’s helping Black Mountain Ski Resort.

“It’s natural to have concerns in a different, new area,” Dubois said. “They’re not used to us. It’s all dark down there. It’s really a teaching exercise for a long time about what we’re doing.”

kskelton@sunjournal.com