During a legislative committee work session Wednesday, state Sen. John Martin tried to drive a wedge between the communities of the Androscoggin River Valley.

After the Department of Environmental Protection presented a “compromise” plan to improve the water quality in the Androscoggin, Martin, D-Eagle Lake, suggested that if the state were going to get tough with the mills along the river, it should also crack down on Lewiston and Auburn.

L.D. 99, sponsored by Rep. Elaine Makas, would require that the Androscoggin meet the same clean-water standards as other Class C rivers in the state. The legislation has been opposed by the paper mills along the river and their defenders on the Natural Resources Committee. The DEP plan tables L.D. 99 for this year.

Martin is as knowledgeable about environmental regulations as just about anyone in the state, so we can’t mark the comment up to not knowing better. Its purpose, then, must be to divide the river’s communities.

As Martin surely knows – and had pointed out to him during the work session – Lewiston and Auburn should be commended for the incredible progress the cities have made in separating their storm water and sewer systems. According to the DEP, the paper mills along the river account for 83 percent of the pollution entering Gulf Island Pond. Discharge from cities and towns accounts for just 2 percent.

In addition, Lewiston and Auburn have DEP-approved plans to move forward. Lewiston, the Auburn Sewerage District and the Lewiston-Auburn Water Pollution Control Authority are in the sixth year of a 15-year plan to upgrade their sewer systems. So far, the three have spent more than $15 million from taxpayers on treatment upgrades and to separate storm runoff from wastewater. The investment is already paying off. The volume of discharge has been reduced by 56 percent since 2000.

Further, the municipal systems dump untreated sewer into the river only during times of heavy rainfall and snow melt, which means during times when the Androscoggin has its highest flows and is most able to handle the discharge.

Lewiston state Sen. Peggy Rotundo was quick to defend her hometown. Rotundo wrote in a prepared statement that she is “disappointed that some legislators have crossed the line in their attempts to find excuses for the pollution that is taking place upstream on the Androscoggin River, and their attempt to divert attention from the real issues that this bill deals with. …

“The idea that the communities of Lewiston and Auburn now fall into the same category of polluters as the paper mills upstream is absurd. If the paper mills adhered to the same discharge standards as Lewiston, had as strict a timetable, and committed a proportional amount of money to cleaning up their discharge, then L.D. 99 wouldn’t be necessary.”

Strong words, but appropriate.

If Martin wants to point fingers, there’s only one direction appropriate, and it ain’t downstream at Lewiston and Auburn. He knows it, too.