Maine: Water by the TRILLIONS of Gallons

According to the USGS Industry uses the most
water in Maine - Commercial bottling uses the least.

 Edited by Mike Corthell

Back in 1866, Gideon J. Tucker stated, “No man’s life, liberty or property are safe when the legislature’s in town.”  Well, the legislature’s back.  Some legislators are already looking at taking some of your property.

There’ll be a bill stealing the ground water you own and giving it to the state.  This is such a bad idea it needs to be immediately flushed down into the legislative dead files.

Maine is an “absolute dominion” state, which means landowners own the water under their lands.  The proponents of this bill are concerned that the neighboring water users are at risk if a landowner withdraws too much water.  This is not true, though.  Maine has stringent environmental regulations to prevent this.  A landowner can’t use ground water under the property to such an extent that will dry up a neighbor’s well.

Legislative policy is often driven by perception.  But let’s look at some water facts:

According to Dr. Robert G. Marvinney, State Geologist, the average rainfall in Maine is 42 inches.  This is the equivalent to 24,000 trillion gallons.  About 50% of the precipitation, or about 12,000 trillion gallons, directly runs off the landscape in streams and rivers.  Another 30-40%, or about 7,000 to 10,000 trillion gallons, evaporates or is transpired through vegetation.  The remaining 10-20%, or about 2,000 to 5,000 trillion gallons, infiltrates to recharge ground water.

[It's useful to note that billions of gallons of ground water flow from New Hampshire's White Mountains via the Saco River through Fryeburg yearly, adding to the above figures.]

Well, what about water usage, you might be thinking.  According to the water withdrawal data compiled by the DEP, the three biggest water users are paper mills, water utilities, and agriculture using 64.9 billion, 29.3 billion and 1.7 billion gallons respectively.  Agricultural usage is mostly for irrigation and depends on the weather.   The total amount of these water users is only 0.4% of the total rainfall for one year.

According to the DEP there are 22 bottled water facilities.  The total water usage is 646 million gallons.  A very small amount when compared to all the water available in Maine.

We’ll ask legislators if the state takes the ownership of ground water from the landowner what guarantee will the landowners have to prevent the state from requiring water meters on their wells and being taxed for water withdrawal?  This has already been considered by some legislators.

Maine has abundant ground water supply.  The quality is excellent.  There is no need to change the ownership of ground water.

-  Jon Olson,
Maine Farm Bureau Executive Secretary