Tea Party Republican Governor Paul LePage of Maine helped Nestlé secure a contract that gives Poland Springs, a Nestlé subsidiary, permission to take the small town of Fryeburg’s groundwater for the next 25 years for their own profit. The deal could stretch to 45 years due to built-in extensions.

Today that deal was upheld by Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court, essentially cutting off activists’ last attempts to scuttle the deal.

There has never been a contract that ties up local water resources for such a long period of time in American history. Water activists worry that this could set a precedent for future corporate attempts to take water from rural towns for extended periods of time.