No corporation or syndicate shall engage in water withdrawals in the Town of Barnstead. The term “engage” shall include, but not be limited to, the physical extraction of water, and the buying and/or selling of water extracted within the Town of Barnstead.

In their Annual Meeting, the town voted 135 to 1 in favor of this rights-based ordinance. Barnstead was the first municipality in the nation to strip corporate constitutional protections as a way to ban corporate water mining for profit. And the first municipality in New Hampshire to bring a rights-based ordinance to a vote.