DEP needs to live up to its name and work to protect Maine’s important rivers.

This is a critical time for the Androscoggin River – the most polluted major river in Maine.

The river remains so polluted that it fails to meet federal or state Clean Water Act standards, but a new study shows that the river can be cleaned up through feasible and affordable investments in the paper mills. These investments will lower operating costs for the mills and enhance their sustainability. Our challenge as a state is to ensure that these investments are made, for the sake of our environment and our economy.

Every summer, there are massive algae blooms in the section of the river between Lewiston-Auburn and Turner. These blooms are mostly due to discharges of phosphorus pollution from the three pulp and paper mills that discharge wastewater into the Androscoggin River: the Fraser mill in Berlin, N.H., and the Mead and International Paper mills in Rumford and Jay.

The green slime makes the water unusable for swimming and robs the water of the oxygen that fish and other aquatic creatures need to breathe. Dead algae from the blooms and other mill waste rots in the river, and as bacteria eat the rotting algae and mill waste, they remove oxygen from the water.

This has been going on for decades, but there was reason for hope in December when Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection released a good proposal to continue the progress in cleaning up the Androscoggin River. DEP also hired a world-renowned expert on paper mill technology to study the three Androscoggin paper mills – by far the largest sources of pollution to the river – and the consultant concluded that huge environmental improvements at Maine’s mills were affordable and achievable.

The best news of all is that the changes needed to clean up the mills will make them much more efficient, saving millions of dollars in manufacturing costs each year. Mills with low manufacturing costs are much more likely to survive over the long term, because when times get tough, companies close mills that have the highest manufacturing costs.

Unfortunately, some mill representatives are ferociously opposed to the cleanup plan, despite the economic and environmental benefits that modernizing the Androscoggin mills and moving forward with cleaning up the river would bring. Last year, paper industry lobbyists led an effort in the Legislature to exempt the Androscoggin River from being required to pass even Maine’s weakest clean water standards. This exemption would have allowed the mills to more than double their pollution at the expense of the river.

Fortunately, the Legislature understood the importance of protecting Maine’s great rivers and rejected the industry proposal, but due to heavy industry pressure it was a very close fight.

For the past six months, DEP has led a task force to try to come up with a solution to the Androscoggin issues. During this process, some mill officials have tried to divert attention and blame to others, despite the fact that DEP’s technical staff has clearly documented that pollution from the mills dwarfs all other sources of pollution. The mills even tried to prevent DEP’s paper mill technology consultant from being able to do his work by not answering questions thoroughly and refusing him full access to mill facilities.

Despite this pressure, the DEP has done a good job leading the Androscoggin task force. DEP’s proposal to clean up the river is reasonable, but over the past weeks, something has clearly gone wrong. DEP missed a deadline to deliver a refined draft of its proposal to members of the task force. Then, it canceled the next task force meeting without informing its members why. We don’t know what is happening behind the scenes, but given the history of this issue, it is likely that DEP is under extreme political pressure to weaken its proposal.

Now is the time for the Department of Environmental Protection to live up to its name. With this new study in hand, it is clear that the Androscoggin can be cleaned up to the level required by Maine law and the Clean Water Act. With a reasonable implementation schedule and creative thinking about financial incentives, investments in the Androscoggin mills will be good for the environment and our economy.

Doing so will benefit the river communities that have invested so much in their waterfronts and help the fish and other creatures that live in the water. The Androscoggin River is too important a resource for Maine to let short-term thinking and power politics govern its fate. DEP should do what it knows is right: act now to clean up the Androscoggin River.

Nick Bennett is a staff scientist for the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

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