Should Ashkettle Approve the Water Bottling Plant?

Resolution: "Ashkettle should recommend approval of the state permit allowing the Redmoor Springs Bottling Company to pump groundwater from the town's aquifer."

Background: Ashkettle is a fictional town of about 5,000 people. Its drinking water comes from three town wells. Those wells reach the same aquifer that supplies about 40 nearby farms and roughly 200 homes with private wells of their own. An aquifer is a layer of rock and sand that holds water in the spaces inside it.

Rain and snowmelt refill the aquifer, which is called recharge. Most recharge in Ashkettle happens in the spring. Pumping happens all year. Pumping also lowers the water level in nearby wells while it runs, and that drop in level is called drawdown.

The Redmoor Springs Bottling Company wants to build a plant near the old rail spur on the east side of town. The plant would drill its own well, pump water from the aquifer, bottle it, and truck it out of the valley. The state decides whether to grant the permit, and it asks the town for a recommendation first. The town council will vote on that recommendation next month.

Roles: Divide the class into two teams. The affirmative team argues for recommending approval. The negative team argues against it. Each team prepares an opening statement, a rebuttal answering the other team's points, and a closing. Choose three students as judges, who score both teams with the rubric, and one student as moderator, who keeps time and calls on speakers. Before the judges announce a result, each judge writes one sentence on an index card naming a score they gave and the moment in the debate that earned it.

Use the numbered points below. Name the point you are using each time you speak.

Case for recommending approval:

1. The plant would bring steady work to a town that lost its largest employer. The company says it would hire 45 full-time workers at the plant. (Source: the fictional Redmoor Springs permit application.)
2. The plant would pay property taxes on the building and the land. In our scenario, the town assessor estimates those taxes would cover about one fifth of what Ashkettle spends on roads each year. (Illustrative figure created for this debate.)
3. The amount requested is small next to what the aquifer already gives up. In our scenario, the plant would pump about 90,000 gallons on a working day, while the town's homes and farms together pump about 1.2 million gallons a day from the same aquifer. (Source: a fictional Ashkettle district engineer's report.)
4. The permit comes with conditions. As drafted for this fictional case, it would require the company to report its water levels every month and would let the state cut the plant's pumping during a declared drought. (Source: the fictional draft state permit.)

Case against recommending approval:

1. The nearest private wells are shallow. A hydrologist's model prepared for this fictional case predicts the water level in wells within a half mile would drop about 3 feet while the plant is pumping. Those homeowners would pay to deepen their own wells. (Source: a fictional consulting hydrologist's report.)
2. Water that is bottled and trucked away leaves the watershed for good. Water used in a home mostly returns to the ground or to the river through the town's treatment system, so it is available again. Bottled water is not. (Source: standard groundwater practice.)
3. The traffic falls on one road. In our scenario the plant would send about 30 truck trips a day past the elementary school, on a road the town would have to repave sooner. (Illustrative point created for this debate.)
4. A permit is hard to take back. The fictional town attorney notes that once the state grants a pumping permit, the town has little say if the company later asks to pump more, and the job number in the application is an estimate rather than a promise. (Source: a fictional Ashkettle town attorney memo.)