A bill would give towns more say over the water that Poland Spring buys from local utilities

In short, water has become a hot commodity across the country and world — and that's fueling concerns that Maine could be vulnerable if companies ramp up the amount of water they’re pumping in Maine, then selling outside the state. LD 1111 aims to give communities more control over the water that’s being removed from their communities for export. It targets the bottled water industry, which accounts for just a sliver of Maine’s overall water use, but has come under fire because of the way it extracts, markets and sells water, as well as its reliance on plastic. In particular, the legislation would add new restrictions on a type of deal that Poland Spring — the biggest water bottling operation in Maine, which pumps roughly 1 billion gallons a year — has struck to buy water directly from some local utilities.