Maine activists protest Nestle’s potential sale of Poland Spring Water to private-equity firm

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 12, 2021

Nestle has entered into exclusive talks to sell those brands, including Maine-based Poland Spring, to One Rock Capital Partners LLC, a New York-based private-equity firm. The deal could be bad for Maine and its aquifers, according to Nickie Sekera, the co-founder of Community Water Justice, a grassroots network of people against water privatization, which said it could be the largest private transfer of water rights for bottling in U.S. history. “It is a huge deal,” according to Nickie Sekera, the co-founder of Community Water Justice. “Nestle is at least a little bit more responsive to negative press…A private-equity firm is going to be even less responsive to the concerns of Maine people.”