LEWISTON - A woman who operated mills in Lewiston and Lisbon for three decades has been fined for mishandling hazardous waste.

Jo Miller, 56, of San Francisco, Calif., was ordered to pay a $24,000 fine and serve two years probation after a conviction in U.S. District Court.

Miller Industries, the company that operated mills on Lincoln and Beech streets in Lewiston and in two locations in Lisbon, was ordered to pay $150,000 in fines and restitution.

Miller was formerly known as Jo Ann Pollack and Jo Ann Lavallee. Court officials said she began operating the mills in the Lewiston area in the early 1970s or before.

According to court records, Miller Industries primarily engaged in the business of milling waste fiber into yarn, cloth and finished textiles. It operated mills on Beech and Lincoln streets in Lewiston, on Mill Street in Lisbon Center and on Canal Street in Lisbon Falls.

In the course of its operations, Miller Industries used a variety of chemicals including dyes, bleaches, caustics and oils, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Rather than dispose of discarded or unusable chemicals, Miller Industries accumulated them on-site and in the fall of 2001, was still storing approximately 550 containers of waste ranging from gallon cans to 55-gallon drums, according to court records. Some of these containers were in poor condition and had been stored for decades.

Many of the chemicals were also hazardous waste as defined by federal and Maine law and regulations due to the characteristics they exhibited, such as flammability, corrosion and toxicity. Miller Industries did not have the necessary permits to store hazardous waste at any of its facilities, according to prosecutors.

In the late summer and early fall of 2001, Miller Industries decided to dispose of the wastes, according to court records. Miller Industries solicited proposals from at least two licensed and qualified environmental contractors. Those contractors provided Miller Industries with proposals to dispose of the waste. Rather than use these qualified contractors, Miller Industries decided to save money by performing some of the work in-house, according to court records. In particular, the company recruited several of its employees to move the wastes from the Beech, Lincoln, and Mill streets' sites and consolidate them in Miller Industries' site on Canal Street.

Federal officials said Miller Industries did not possess a valid EPA identification number, license or any permit to generate, store, treat or transport hazardous waste. It did not generate any manifests for the hazardous waste that it transported. It did not properly label the containers or placard the truck that it used to transport the waste over public roads. It did not provide any worker training associated with the hazards of handling such wastes.

About April 16, one of Miller Industries' employees was exposed to reactive waste, according to court records.

On April 22, 2002, Jo Miller began to contact different licensed, qualified environmental contractors to dispose of all of the waste which had, by then, been moved to the Canal Street location. She continued to make such arrangements until someone complained to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection about what Miller Industries had been doing.

On June 8, a federal judge sentenced Miller Industries to one year of probation, a $75,000 fine, and a $75,000 community restitution payment to the Maine Hazardous Waste Fund.