MAINE MONITOR • December 4, 2022
The 16-member Commission To Study the Role of Water As a Resource in the State of Maine, which arose out of a bill to tax bottled water exports, met five times before issuing its draft report yesterday. It had an expansive mandate, including studying the extent of the state’s resources as well as the legal principles regarding ownership, the state’s future water needs, exportation of water and sustainability of aquifers, among other issues. That’s a lot to accomplish over the course of five meetings, so perhaps it’ll come as no surprise that the commission’s topline recommendation was to establish a new, “more focused” commission to address the old commission’s “unresolved work.”