Nestle's Poland Spring Water unit has duped US consumers into paying premium prices for ordinary ground water that's pumped from some of Maine's most populated areas, rather than from natural springs as the company advertises, according to a lawsuit.
While Poland Springs says its bottles contain "100 per cent natural spring water" from a source deep in Maine's woods, the complaint filed on August 15 in the federal court in Connecticut claims Nestle Waters North America has bottled well water that doesn't meet the USÂ Food and Drug Administration's definition of spring water.
More World News Videos
Is Nestle's Poland Spring just 'ground water'?
A class-action lawsuit against Nestle claims their '100% Natural Spring Water'is actually 'ordinary groundwater' and is a 'colossal fraud'.
The suit, which includes claims for breach of contract and "colossal fraud", also seeks unspecified damages for violations of state laws, including those of New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts.
None of Poland Spring Water's eight purported "natural spring" sites contains a genuine spring under FDA rules, according to the suit. "One or more" of the company's largest volume ground water collection sites â which the suit says supplies up to 99 per cent of the water in Poland Spring Water products â are near a current or former refuse pit, landfill or petroleum dump site, the plaintiffs say.
![Lawsuit says that Poland Springs' claim that its water bottles contain "100 per cent natural spring water" is false.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170822150301im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/y/0/h/8/t/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gy0956.png/1503276499389.jpg)
Even the historic Poland Spring site in western Maine, which displays a stream of mineral water shielded behind glass, is no longer natural but instead generated by a machine that pumps it out of the ground, according to the complaint.
"To consumers, 'spring water' from a naturally occurring spring signifies purity and high quality and commands a premium price compared to defendant's non-spring drinking water products or filtered tap water," said the proposed class-action suit filed on behalf of consumers who had bought the water.
"To illicitly capture that premium, [the] defendant, since it began selling the Poland Spring brand in 1993, has bottled common ground water and illegally mislabelled it as '100 per cent Natural Spring Water'."
While Poland Spring's products aren't contaminated because the company disinfects and in some cases purifies the ground water it collects, the suit maintains the company's claims are misleading because the water comes from wells in low-lying populated areas near potential sources of contamination.
![Nestle is accused of using ground water in its Poland Spring Water products.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170822150301im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/m/z/w/l/n/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gy0956.png/1503276499389.jpg)
In a statement, Nestle Waters vowed to fight the suit.
According to the website for the town of Poland Spring, a homesteader called Hiram Ricker declared in the mid-1800s that the mineral spring on his family's property cured his dyspepsia, which caused people to flock to the area to take advantage of the spring's curative powers.
Bloomberg