A recent committee meeting at the State House is cause for serious concern to residents of the Androscoggin River Valley.

At Wednesday’s legislative work session for L.D. 99, the bill that would require the Androscoggin to be held to the same water-quality standard as all other rivers in Maine, the Department of Environmental Protection presented to the Natural Resources Committee an agreement reached with the industry it regulates – an agreement it reached without public input.

The agreement consigns the Androscoggin, and its communities, to continued second-class status and gives the paper industry nothing short of a mandate to continue freely violating the Clean Water Act.

The DEP is prepared to move ahead with the agreement, calling it a “compromise” and giving the Natural Resources Committee the option to wash its hands of the matter entirely, simply allowing the second-class treatment of the Androscoggin River, and more importantly, of the communities that live along its stretch, to continue. For now, they have tabled the matter in order to “digest” the compromise, and things do not look good for those of us who live under this environmental injustice.

How long will it take before we’re seen as equals in the eyes of Maine? Apparently, another lifetime.

As longtime residents of the Androscoggin River Valley (Leeds and Lewiston), and as lifetime beneficiaries of this sad legacy, we had to stop and ask ourselves this question: Why? Why does the Androscoggin River – and why do we – continue to be dealt such second-class treatment?

That the Androscoggin is a second-class river and that we are second-class citizens of Maine is certainly not our own perception. The only answer we can come to is this: It is, indeed, a matter of class.

The towns and cities along the Androscoggin are historically working-class communities, and as history has recorded countless times, the working-class people and their future are often considered expendable, much like the waste being dumped into our river.

Throughout this fight, we’ve faced the pulp and paper interests on one front, claiming financial losses if forced to clean up – claims which are contrary to a report from a world-renowned paper industry expert, and commissioned by the DEP, which found that the mills could achieve the water quality standards in an affordable manner that would in fact result in more efficient and more competitive mills on the Androscoggin – and threatening us with job cuts. They have used the communities livelihood against us to win support.

On another front, we have faced what appears to be indifference in Augusta, listening as both legislators and leaders from outside the valley tell us that it really doesn’t matter how long it takes to clean the river, as long as it gets cleaner at some point in the future.

The issue is not simply that the Androscoggin be cleaner than it is now, after all, it wouldn’t take much improvement to make the dirtiest river in Maine a “cleaner” river. The fundamental issue is how clean of a river we deserve and how soon we deserve it. Our answer is simple: as clean and as soon as every other river in Maine.

Both of us have family members who bent their backs in the shoe factories and textile mills that used to line our river. Visit our towns now and all that you will see of those mills are hulking, empty shells, the remnants of industries shipped overseas. However, look closely and you’ll also see some small signs of life and hope – recreational industries springing up along our riverbanks, water-front development spreading slowly through our downtowns.

If we let the river backslide, we lose our connection to the future. We can’t afford to simply watch as our future rushes once again out to sea with the polluted currents of the Androscoggin.

As the Lewiston delegation continues to fight tirelessly for us, it’s long past time to call in reinforcements. We call upon the leaders of the communities along the Androscoggin and our leaders in Augusta to stand with them, and us.

Quietly accepting the “compromise” put forth by the DEP on Wednesday is to, in fact, compromise our future and that of our children. It is not the paper industry’s right to pollute our river, but it is the right of the communities along the Androscoggin, as much as any other riverside community in Maine, to have a clean, healthy, economically sustainable future.

It’s a matter of basic dignity and fairness, and nothing more. We deserve what our ancestors worked so hard to give us. We deserve our future; we deserve our river.

Andrea Breau works for the Maine League of Conservation Voters and lives in Lewiston. Neil Ward works part-time for the Natural Resource Council of Maine and lives in Leeds.

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