Word: wilfong
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...state better known for its lobster rolls and rugged landscape, James Wilfong has a radical new vision for Maine's future. On his trips abroad as a Small Business Administration official in the 1990s, Wilfong came to realize that in many places water was worth fighting for. "The light went off in my head," he says. "Water is Maine's oil in this century...
Maine has only 1.3 million people but at least 25 trillion gallons of drinkable water in its lakes and aquifers. Wilfong, a former state legislator, wants to turn that resource into cold cash. So he proposed a tax on large bottled-water operations that is set for a ballot referendum next year. Maine is one of several states where activists are challenging the $10 billion U.S. bottled-water industry. Declares Wilfong: "We're just saying, This water is not free...
...water sales, is the largest bottled-water company in the U.S., and it's at the center of a water war on several fronts. As owner of Poland Spring, which uses 500 million gallons of Maine water a year, Nestlé could owe $96 million in tax each year if Wilfong's proposal is passed. "His mission is misguided," says Kim Jeffery, CEO of Nestlé North America, which now pays only for the land where the springs are found. In response to a new tax, he says, Nestlé would cancel a planned new plant, costing the state 250 jobs...