A Friendly Group of Neighbors Who Decided to Take Action

Save Our Groundwater (SOG) is an all-volunteer citizen action group dedicated to protecting water as a natural resource held in the public trust now and for the future. Several neighbors organized in response to an application for a large groundwater withdrawal permit by USA Springs, Inc. on an approximately 100-acre parcel of land located in the southern New Hampshire towns of Nottingham and Barrington.

We are registered with the New Hampshire Secretary of State as a nonprofit corporation. We have a six-member Board of Directors and our members serve on several committees that carry out SOG’s communications, outreach and legislative work. Our members have presented conference workshops and talks in many parts of the United States and participated in international conferences in Mexico, India, and New Zealand.

Our key objectives are as follows:

• We continue to support the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (DES ) policy as stated in DES Environmental Fact Sheet WD-WSEB-22-13 that “surface water and groundwater are an integrated public resource to be conserved, protected, and managed for the public good.”
• We want all environmental decisions based on best practices, verifiable science and data.
• To educate and increase public awareness about groundwater conservation and the issues that place it in jeopardy.
• To strengthen and advance the laws protecting water locally, regionally, nationally and globally.

Board of Directors Nonviolence Statement

Save Our Groundwater believes that we can best protect our precious water resources by working together as a community with local and state officials to develop standards of conservation and science-based, sustainable patterns of use. We do this through education, outreach and at times by exercising our First Amendment rights with peaceful demonstrations that call attention to an issue.

Save Our Groundwater believes in using dialogue, peaceful protest and disciplined nonviolent civil disobedience to reach our goals. We have a history of conducting our public meetings, forums and rallies in a nonviolent manner since 2001. We do not damage property or engage in any form of aggressive behavior toward police or other security personnel. We do not condone violence against persons or property in our organization or our movement.

We believe that our message of protecting and conserving our natural resources and seeking environmental justice for our communities is best served by peaceful strategies that enhance community rather than images or words or actions of violence and destruction. We believe that in the common struggle to build a better world, our methods must be consistent with our goals. We believe that a better world is possible and that it must be modeled in our movement.

Nonviolent resistance is action-oriented, creative and engages the community. We invite you to explore the many types of nonviolent strategies that can be taken by reading “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action.”

Save Our Groundwater Board of Directors

October 2007

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