Mt Shasta Water Rights: WHO DECIDES? - The Community ...

purchased by the Garrison Place Real Estate Investment Trust, was suddenly approvedfor industrial use.Despite opinions from the chief of police about traffic dangers from water trucksentering the highway, and despite scientific evidence to quell the permitting of alarge scale bottling operation (such as warnings of contamination found on theabutting property), the pump tests went ahead as scheduled in 2002. Pump testsfor 10 days contaminated the aquifer and resulted in no recharge for 180 days.In 2003, DES denied the company’s appeal for a New Source of Bottled Water Permit.With a change in the State administration – Governor Benson elected and a newadministrative head of DES appointed – the company resubmitted application andwas approved.Local voters passed a local restriction banning all bottling operations in town in 2004.Their elected officials met with legal counsel and representatives of USA Springs,Inc., to overturn the ban, as legal counsel advised the regulatory ban was “illegal”.This cleared the way for the permitted activity to proceed. [It was not until 2008that people uncovered this unpublicized meeting and learned of the action takento override the peoples’ vote.]In 2005, Department of Environmental Services (DES) issued a Certificate of NoFurther Action to USA Springs and closed the case. USA Springs, Inc. contested.Neighborhood Guardians formed (11/16/05) to take over the court appeal. In 2006,the NH Supreme Court ruled that citizens as well as members of Save Our Groundwaterand Neighborhood Guardians had “no standing” in the case. The decisionwas made in favor of USA Springs (Town of Nottingham v. USA Springs, 2006)Nottingham residents responded to the reward of a permit to extract water byadopting the Nottingham Water Rights and Local Self-Government Ordinanceat Town Meeting in 2008, with a vote of 173:111. When someone in the crowdinvoked Article 40:10 in a motion to reconsider the vote, the motion for reconsiderationfailed, with people voting against it, 54:35. The vote in favor of theordinance carried both times by a majority vote. No water has been extractedby USA Springs and the company is currently in bankruptcy proceedings.In the neighboring town of Barnstead, NH, residents wondered about other kindsof strategies that might be available to people wanting to ban a regulated landuse like water extraction. Taking a proactive measure, they unanimously passed aResolution to Protect Groundwater and one to ban the incineration of Constructionand Demolition Debris (C&D) within the Town at Town Meeting in 2005.The small group of people who volunteered to work on language for an ordinanceto be presented at the next year’s Town Meeting began researching large groundwaterlaws in the state and recently adopted ordinances around New England thatMt. Shasta Water Rights: Who Decides? 28