For the fifth time since it received its original permit in 2005, the Poland Spring bottling company is asking the town of Denmark in western Maine to renew a water extraction permit for another five years.
Poland Spring wants to continue pumping up to 432,000 gallons a day or no more than 105.1 million gallons in any 365-day period from land it owns in the town. The Cold Spring site in Denmark is one of 10 places in Maine that the company relies on for its bottled water.
The request comes a year after Denmark, like so many other parts of Maine, faced a severe and persistent drought. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, conditions have recently improved in the region and Denmark is no longer in a drought or considered abnormally dry.
But at a public hearing on the permit Tuesday night, residents told the Select Board that at least a couple of local wells are running dry. Many also expressed concern about Long Pond, a small, four-mile long, spring-fed pond that they say has remained several feet below normal. Some homeowners’ docks are essentially stranded. Even Poland Spring’s monitoring gauges are now 10 feet from the pond, said resident Jeff Trickel, who shared photos with the board.
“There has just been a significant loss of pond water, and these gauges aren’t measuring anything anymore. They’re just on dry land. So what they’re accomplishing, I don’t know,” Trickel said.
While Poland Spring does not withdraw water directly from the pond, a state permit for “large-scale pumping or extraction of groundwater, spring water and water from aquifers” was first approved in Denmark in 2005. Since then, residents have grown more aware of the effects of climate change and more protective of the resource. Some say that at the very least the company’s next permit should require a reduction in pumping after three consecutive months or more of drought.
“I’m going to run out of water, and I’m very pleased that the town is taking measures to make sure that people are supported in curing issues to their well,” said Cullen Ryan, who built a camp on the pond 27 years ago. “However, that’s not my end game to have a working well and a missing pond.”
But the company maintains that there is no direct relationship between its pumping operations and water levels on Long Pond. Matt Reynolds, a hydrogeologist hired by Poland Spring, said the effects of pumping don’t reach as far as the pond.
“The groundwater is low, Long Pond is low and that’s due to the drought conditions,” he said.
At the same time, Mark Dubois, the company’s senior natural resource manager, said the watershed that surrounds Cold Springs receives about 46 inches of precipitation a year, for a total volume of 4.3 billion gallons of water falls in the watershed. But Dubois said Poland Spring only withdraws about 2.4% of the total and regular monitoring of nearby springs, groundwater, residential wells and surface water shows there is no adverse effect from their pumping operations.
“We’ve pumped through extreme drought and drought … And we believe there’s going to be no significant climate change in the next five years that would affect our ability to operate here,” he said.
That comment drew the ire of residents, such as Audrey Rabinowitz, who previously served on the town’s water ordinance review committee.
“I think we only have to look at the past year, the past two years,” she said. “That’s nonsensical.”
Rabinowitz also challenged the company’s assertion that there is no relation between pumping operations and the pond.
“The USGS [U.S. Geological Survey] has said … that there is absolutely a connection. They’ve studied the region,” she said. “So, if it’s the applicant’s position that there’s not one, then they have to do more than say it.”
In late 2024, Denmark residents unanimously approved a large-scale water extraction ordinance with added powers for the town to reduce or halt pumping when water in an aquifer drops below a certain level. The revised ordinance also includes language to require water extractors, such as Poland Spring, to apply for a new permit when their ownership changes. As a new applicant, that would involve a more stringent review process. But because the ordinance was approved a month after Poland Spring’s parent company, Blue Triton, merged with Primo Brands, the company’s position is that the new ordinance does not apply to it.
Rabinowitz disagrees.
“While they were having merger conversations, they were also negotiating with us to make the ordinance less onerous to them,” she said. “I suggest the new ordinance applies to them, and that it mandates that we consider them as a new applicant, not a renewal applicant.”
Last year, Primo Brands reported sales of more than $6.6 billion. The town of Denmark is not compensated for the water that is extracted from the Cold Spring aquifer. But Poland Spring pays about $34,000 in annual property taxes and has contributed funding for the fire department, fireworks and lighting for a ballfield.
“What they’re advocating for is primarily concerned with making money, regardless of what they tell us,” resident Jill McCain said. “I ask that you put our residents first, above the interests of Poland Spring and do everything in your power to protect us from our wells going dry and the long-term damage that’s being done to the ponds and aquifers in our area.”
Late last summer in the midst of a persistent drought, Poland Spring reported that it was voluntarily cutting back water withdrawals at sites in Denmark and Fryeburg. But when a reporter with the national advocacy journalism outlet More Perfect Union looked at the numbers, he found that during the month of September, Poland Spring was taking more water from both places than it did in September the two previous years.
Maine Public’s own review of the monthly withdrawal data found that over the past two years, between January and September, Poland Spring’s withdrawals increased by more than 40% in Fryeburg and nearly 23% in Denmark.
When asked at the public hearing why the company reported that it reduced withdrawals when they actually increased, Mark Dubois said that in 2024 when it started getting dry, Poland Spring was “pulling about 71%” of its allowed 105 million gallon total. In 2025, it was about 78% of the total. And this year, pumping has been cut back to “sometimes below 100 gallons a minute.”
“We’ve been adaptively managing the site to climate and alert levels,” Dubois said. “So we can turn it down and we can watch the aquifer rebound. And that’s what we did this year.”
As part of Poland Spring’s permit renewal, Laurie LaMountain, who also served on the town’s water extraction review committee, said there should be an extensive assessment of the aquifer. She said one hasn’t been done since 2008, despite the fact that the large-scale water extraction ordinance calls for one every 10 years.
“Not only is it way overdue … recurrent and persistent weather patterns point to climate change and a new normal,” she said.
Poland Spring’s current permit expires at the end of the year.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.