RUMFORD – Residents, environmental groups and mill owners will have a chance on Tuesday and Wednesday to learn how the Department of Environmental Protection will develop a plan for helping to clean up Gulf Island Pond.

Public information sessions are scheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday at Rumford Public Library, and 5 p.m. Wednesday at Lewiston City Hall.

Andrew Fisk, Land and Water Quality bureau director of the DEP, said a group of seven state environmental experts will attend each meeting to field questions and explain the process.

Gulf Island Pond is a dammed, 14-mile stretch of the Androscoggin River between Auburn and Turner on the west side, and Lewiston and Greene on the east side.

With three paper mills and five municipalities dumping treated effluent into the river, the man-made pond does not meet state water quality standards.

MeadWestvaco in Rumford, International Paper in Jay, and Fraser Paper in Berlin, N.H., discharge into the river, along with the municipalities of Berlin and Gorham, N.H., Bethel, Rumford/Mexico, Livermore Falls and Jay.

Fisk said a public comment period will follow during the month of January.

Once the plan is developed, known as the Total Maximum Daily Load, that information will be used as part of the licensing requirements for the mills and the municipalities. The so-called TMDL will outline the amount of pollutants that can be discharged into the pond per day.

The first licenses using the new discharging requirements will begin in June.