"Fryeburg is old, established in 1762, and a little inbred: the same dozen names show up on buildings, parks, cemeteries, hills, and rosters of elected or appointed officials. I meet men who own mountains, miles of lakefront, and vast swathes of forest handed down by land grants from the governor of Massachusetts. I hear about strangers showing up in town to buy property and the water that flows under it. Before long, Fryeburg seems like Chinatown, the movie, to me. Everywhere I turn there is intrigue, there is someone with a heated opinion, with "water on the brain," as Jake Gittes, the character played by Jack Nicholson, puts it. I hear about hydrogeologists drilling test wells on the q.t., about dummy corporations, secret planning-board meetings, tape recorders at public meetings that stop at conve­nient times, notes that go missing, and appointed officials suspected of shilling for outside corporate interests. I meet the man who provided access to the spring that fills the tanker trucks of Nestlé."

Elizabeth Royte's Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It was published in June by Bloomsbury.