Trickle Up, Speak Out: Local is Global

By Jessica McEachern

A stream of passion for the natural world has run through Jill Reymore’s life since childhood. Her “especially soft spot for water habitats,” as she calls it, has led Reymore all over the United States to her current home in Randolph. Recently armed with an environmental law degree from Vermont Law School, Reymore is focusing her passion on local causes, from stabilizing the White River’s banks to preserving the springs in Randolph Center from overdredging for bottled water profits. Getting involved locally, she believes, is the best way to protect our water globally.


Jill Reymore partnered with the White River. Photo: Margaret Michniewicz

Reymore’s water credentials run deep: after receiving her B.S. in Environmental Studies with a concentration in water resources and geology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science & Forestry, Reymore began her career investigating water pollution complaints for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. She later served as a consultant in Washington State on erosion control methods for construction sites.

Reymore then continued to raise her family in Maine where, with her career on hold, she became increasingly involved with local grassroots water organizations. “For twelve years, my passion was satisfied through keeping up-to-date on local water issues and supporting environmental groups,” Reymore recalled. “It was when my youngest child was in first grade that I not only wanted to get back to my career, but that my passion for water issues had matured enough for me to realize that if I was really going to make a difference in the environment, I had to do it using ‘the system.’ I decided to go to law school.”

Her decision was spurred by real court experience. Reymore had joined the National Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) legal battle against a long-time mercury polluter of the Penobscot River in Maine. “I testified in federal court about my use of that river and how I would be harmed if the mercury pollution was not cleaned up,” she said. NRDC and the Penobscot River won the case and that experience launched Reymore, at age 40, into the joint degree program of J.D. & Masters of Studies in Environmental Law (M.S.E.L) at Vermont Law School in South Royalton.

While attending VLS, Reymore was asked to serve on the board of directors of the White River Partnership (WRP) acting as a liaison between the grassroots group and the law school; she later became the secretary of the WRP board. Reymore also became vice president of the steering committee for Water 1st!, which she describes as, “a group of passionate local citizens, advocating and educating the public specifically about Vermont groundwater issues.

“I found it refreshing to volunteer with local citizens on the board (as opposed to law students) who were concerned about the White River watershed and created opportunities for members to work with riparian land owners to stabilize the banks of the river,” she said. “It was a way of channeling my water passion through something more tangible than my law classes, and I felt like I was helping to make a small difference locally.”

Environmental groups like these hardly make “a small difference”; they are essential in providing the necessary public pressure to ensure that progress is made in protecting Vermont’s waterways.
And there is much progress to be made even in locating Vermont’s water supply, says Reymore. Unlike New Hampshire and Maine, Vermont has not mapped the location of groundwater aquifers. “The State has no clue as to the quantity or quality of the water that is stored in [the aquifers], nor where they are located,” she notes.

While state law has mandated that groundwater mapping for the entire state be completed by July 1, 2007, it is practically impossible that this deadline will be met since, according to Reymore, “as of late 2005, only Arlington had been mapped. A few other towns are partially completed, but there is no way this deadline can be reached.”

And while Lake Champlain receives the bulk of attention paid to water issues in Vermont, there is a difference to be made in every region of the state that can collectively have a large-scale impact on the health and stability of our water resources. “According to ANR [the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources], the Lake Champlain watershed serves one-third of Vermont’s population, yet it seems to attract most of the environmental attention from the state and the media,” Reymore said. “The other two-thirds of the population depends on groundwater supplies either through public water systems or private wells or springs. The groundwater aquifers in Vermont are within many different watersheds, like the White River.”

Claiming she is a “novice” of Water 1st!, Reymore describes in detail the history of Vermont Pure bottled spring water, a prime example of the harm that unregulated commerce can have on natural water sources. This story was also the catalyst for the formation of Water 1st!

“The origin of Vermont Pure and Hidden Spring bottled spring water is in Randolph Center where a clean, clear, cold spring rises up to form Blaisdell Brook. While it started in 1990 as a small Vermont corporation called Vermont Pure Springs Inc., a larger Massachusetts corporation, Micropack Bottled Water, purchased it in 2004. A year later it changed its name to ClearSource and now draws tens of thousands of gallons out of the spring, which is a direct line to the public aquifer beneath. ClearSource sells this water across state boundaries in many different venues.

Concerns arose when the residents around Blaisdell Brook noticed that some of their personal wells were drying up, water levels were lowered and trout habitat degraded and the frequency of large truckloads of water increased daily along their quiet dirt roads,” Reymore recalls. “Potentially, the large withdrawals and transfer of water to other watersheds via commercial bottles could adversely effect the White River watershed and the water cycle here in Vermont.”

Questions abounded. How much water was being commercially withdrawn? How much water is in the aquifer? Is there going to be enough for residential uses in the future? Who is profiting?

According to Reymore, the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources should have been addressing these questions. But, she says, ANR is “seriously slacking off in their responsibility to Vermont’s water bodies. Many Vermont environmental organizations are angry about their lack of effort. The federal Clean Water Act charged ANR with the responsibility of proper regulation and monitoring of water pollution a long time ago, and Vermonters need to know that ANR is not living up to its mandate. Citizens need to speak out.”

Without citizen action, Vermont could be soon exclaiming a modern version of Samuel Coleridge’s despairingly ironic line from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”: “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.” That is, unless you’d like to pay $2.99 for a gallon of Vermont Pure bottled water.

Jessica McEachern is Publishing Assistant at Vermont Woman. She lives in Bridport and is a Saint Michael’s College alumna.