My name is Tom Brennan. I am a Senior Natural Resource Manager at Nestlé Waters. I wanted to introduce myself as I hope to engage in an active open dialogue in the coming months as we begin our relationship with the Town of Sterling.
On March 21, Nestlé answered a Request for Proposals to purchase spring water from the Town of Clinton, drawn from the Wekepeke land it owns in the Town of Sterling. Just last week Nestlé sent a formal proposal to the Sterling Board of Selectmen outlining our plan and offering specific benefits for the Town. Now that formal proposals have been submitted to the Towns of Sterling and Clinton the official review of our plan can begin.
I want to personally introduce Nestlé’s proposal and the benefits it can offer the Town of Sterling. Attached is a fact sheet about our plan that I believe you will find useful. We hope you will keep an open mind about the project and support a comprehensive and careful review of it by town officials.
In a nutshell, our plan includes:
- Drawing a limited amount of spring water from three shallow wells near the Spring Basin section of the Wekepeke.
- Compensation to the Town of Sterling between $150,000 and $200,000 annually during the course of our agreement.
- Paying for the Town of Sterling to hire its own legal and scientific experts to review and analyze our proposal.
- Strict regulation and oversight by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) as well as other state and municipal agencies.
- Binding well protection agreements for Wekepeke neighbors.
Our plan is environmentally sound and will cause no harm to the watershed. We base this conclusion on the results of a 15-day pump test at the Wekepeke, purposely done last fall at a very dry time of year by Northeast Geoscience, Inc., a locally based third party firm. The test used a process developed by the Massachusetts DEP to evaluate potential new water sources. DEP staff walked the Wekepeke with us to inspect the site and to review our testing protocols before we pumped. The test results demonstrate that there would be no adverse impact on neighboring wells or the watershed.
Nestlé’s fundamental goal is to sell high quality water. Our business model depends on us maintaining the quality and the sustainability of the springs from which we obtain water, whether at Poland Spring in Maine or here at the Wekepeke. The key to our successful management of this site and others is our long term monitoring program which starts before the pump test and continues as long as we operate.
In the coming months we will be actively reaching out to you to ensure that you have the most up-to-date information on the progress of the project. As members of the Sterling community we understand how important it is for you to have accurate and current information about the project so you can make informed decisions.
We have now begun a process that will require detailed reviews at the local and state levels. Every step along the way I welcome your input and am confident we can prove to you that Nestlé Waters will be a good neighbor and a contributing member of the Sterling community for many years to come.
For more information about our project, or if you have specific questions, please call me at 617-348-1632 or visit our website, www.nestlewatersma.com
Thomas Brennan
- Project Fact Sheet - |
