{"id":9572,"date":"2009-04-01T10:53:20","date_gmt":"2009-04-01T14:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bridge.batesmaine.net\/?p=9572"},"modified":"2023-01-20T15:20:43","modified_gmt":"2023-01-20T20:20:43","slug":"tom-brennan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2009\/04\/01\/tom-brennan\/","title":{"rendered":"Science before water, says Poland Spring&#039;s Tom Brennan &#039;83"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href='https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2009\/04\/alumni-brennan83-xk8s3520.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"135\" height=\"185\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2009\/04\/alumni-brennan83-xk8s3520.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium alignright\" alt=\"Tom Brennan &#039;83\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When Tom Brennan &#8217;83, senior natural resource manager for Poland Spring bottled water, approaches a Maine community about using their water, he&#8217;s ready for a frosty reception.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re not always thrilled to talk to Poland Spring,&#8221; says Brennan, a Bates geology major who took part in a recent Department of Geology luncheon for students, faculty and staff.<\/p>\n<p>Maine communities, increasingly aware of various sustainability issues, are more protective of their water resources than ever. So, to begin a productive dialog, Brennan relies on his geology training. &#8220;We ask a community if we can do the science,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>A 2008 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/video\/module.html?mod=0&amp;pkg=18082008&amp;seg=3\"><em>PBS Newshour<\/em> story<\/a> about Maine water issues quotes Tom Brennan &#8217;83.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>A 2006 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/x152354.xml\">Bates Magazine<\/a> story features Brennan, Andy Tolman &#8217;70, and Keith Taylor &#8217;82 and their involvement in Maine water.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more-->In <a href=\"http:\/\/kingfield.polandspringme.com\/\">Kingfield, Maine<\/a>, for example, Poland Spring recently opened a new water extraction and bottling plant after years of studying and learning about the aquifer and its resilience. The process began when Brennan approached a skeptical local water district. &#8220;Once we began focusing on the water, a lot of the problems went away.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Still, Poland Spring \u2014 and the bottled water industry in general \u2014 is facing a backlash these days around a variety of issues: the carbon footprint of trucked water, PET plastic recycling,  land use, local control and social justice.<\/p>\n<p>At Bates (which offers the Summit Spring brand of bottled water), there&#8217;s a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.batesstudent.com\/forum\/bates-should-ban-water-bottles-to-promote-sustainability-1.1602271\">Take Back the Tap<\/a> chapter. During Brennan&#8217;s visit, students quizzed him about \u2014 among other issues \u2014 whether America could become a society cleaved between those who can afford quality bottled water and those who only have access to tap water flowing through a dilapidated infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>The bottled-water industry faces more such criticisms than other water-intensive industries, Brennan says. &#8220;Water can&#8217;t hide,&#8221; he says. &#8220;Sometimes I think if we put a little food coloring and carbonation in our product, we&#8217;d be off the hook.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Tom Brennan &#8217;83, senior natural resource manager for Poland Spring bottled&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[7,232,32],"tags":[10856,3269,10841,11035,8414],"class_list":["post-9572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-environment-sustainability","category-maine-and-new-england","tag-bates-magazine","tag-engineering","tag-geology","tag-profiles","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9572"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88818,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9572\/revisions\/88818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}