Newfield, Maine, joins neighbor Shapleigh in banning large scale water extraction

Video from Portland's WCSH-6 news is available here.

NEWFIELD (NEWS CENTER) -- The town of Newfield is now the second in Maine to ban large-scale water extraction.

Saturday's vote was 228 in favor of the new ordinance and 146 against. The vote is a reaction to interest from Poland Spring Water and its parent company, Nestle, in pumping water from an aquifer shared by Newfield and Shapleigh.

Shapleigh voted for the same ban on water extraction two weeks ago. However, there is some concern that that ordinance could be overturned in court. As a result, townspeople voted on a different ordinance at town meeting Saturday that would lay out what a water company would have to do to be able to extract water from the aquifer.

That ordinance, which environmentalists felt was too weak, passed by a single vote.