Nestle's marketing and sales of Poland Spring water has been "a colossal fraud perpetrated against American consumers," 11 people claim in a federal class action. Filing their suit Tuesday in Connecticut, where Nestle is based, the lead plaintiffs are from the Nutmeg State as well as New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. They say they would not have paid a premium for the water had they known it did not actually come from eight purported natural springs in Maine.

Rather than being "100% Natural Spring Water," the "products all contain ordinary groundwater that defendant collects from wells it drilled in saturated plains or valleys where the water table is within a few feet of the earth's surface," lead plaintiff Mark J. Patane says in the complaint. "The vast bulk of that groundwater is collected from Maine's most populous counties in southwestern Maine, only a short distance from the New Hampshire border," the complaint continues.

As required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, all bottled spring water must be collected either at the source of a naturally occurring spring or from a well that draws from a natural spring. "In hydro-geological parlance, all such well water must be 'hydraulically connected' to a genuine spring," the complaint states. But the class says that's not the case for defendant Nestle Waters North America's eight sites in Maine.