The Kingfield bottling plant helps meet the growing demand for Poland Spring, bottled since 1845. With a new team of local employees in place, the plant became operational in late 2008.
The Poland Spring Water Company, owned by Nestlé Waters North America, received planning board approval on Oct. 19, 2006 and began construction of this two-line bottling plant in Kingfield. Poland Spring worked with local, state and federal authorities, including the Kingfield Planning Board, Board of Selectmen and the Kingfield Water District, as well as Maine's Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Transportation. Local Maine contractors were responsible for most of the plant's construction.
The new plant is a state-of-the-art facility, built to be LEED-certified. It is part of a 350-acre site on the west side of Route 27, just south of town. Bottles are blow-molded on site - which eliminates trucking in empty bottles - and filled with spring water. The plant represents an initial Poland Spring investment of about $60 million, and currently employs about 40 people.
Water sources
Bradbury Spring in Kingfield is the primary water source for the new plant. It was first identified as a possible spring water source in 2005. Poland Spring, local officials and groundwater experts recognize the specific qualities of Kingfield's groundwater resources. Bradbury Spring's high-quality water and Kingfield's 36,700-acre combined watershed with an average 42 inches of annual precipitation make the area ideal for a bottling plant. Poland Spring also will bottle water in Kingfield from the nearby satellite source at Dallas Plantation.
Amount of water used
The Kingfield plant will draw up to an average of 200 million gallons per year from Bradbury Spring. The average recharge rate of its 7,100-acre mapped sand and gravel aquifer is 16 billion gallons per year - about 44 million gallons per day. Kingfield Water District uses about 0.3 percent of the aquifer's annual recharge, while the new Poland Spring plant will use about 1.2 percent. Water Use
