Welcome to our new Maine water organizer!

The Defending Water for Life in Maine campaign is beginning the fall with a new organizer, Ryan Clark from Corinth. He'll be broadening the campaign to reach communities in the North Woods where powerful timber companies like Plum Creek own millions of acres of land, as well as the water below, thanks to state law granting "absolute dominion" over groundwater to landowners. This puts the timber companies in the position of being able to profit from exporting water once global water shortages make it profitable. A proposed East/West superhighway across Maine would make such exports profitable much sooner if this highway is actually built. Because the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, backed up by free trade agreements, makes it illegal to ban exports, getting rid of absolute dominion and replacing it with a robust law protecting groundwater as a public trust is critical to protecting Maine's water. While continuing to assist local communities in their fights against Nestlé/Poland Spring, the campaign will develop a longer-term campaign to end absolute dominion in Maine and to recognize the rights of nature as integral to the public trust.