Once again, the mills have triumphed. Despite the pleas of citizens in the River Valley and Lewiston-Auburn area, the Natural Resources Committee voted unanimously against Rep. Elaine Makas’ bill, L.D. 99, to keep the Androscoggin River to the same environmental standard as the other Class C rivers in Maine.

The defeat of this bill brings the issue of environmental justice into clear focus. When does it become immoral for a business to pour out toxins onto the surrounding areas? How long must the dying go on before change is made? When the radio documentary, “Cancer Valley,” was being made, the children with cancer at the Boston Children’s Hospital lived in the Rumford-Dixfield area. The children of mill shareholders (other than the mill workers) lived somewhere else.

Is profit the determining factor of whether a child breathes clean air or can eat river fish? With a first-quarter profit of $77 million, it does not make sense that International Paper could not afford to make the necessary upgrades. Is there a magic number? Will IP ever decide it can clean up its act? Only if the population and their legislators demand it. And there’s the rub. The citizens asked for change, but the committee did not. There, as evidenced by their behavior, in a culture of mill dominance, the voices of those living downstream did not really count.

With a unanimous vote, there is no way to know which legislators supported the environment and which did not.

Jenny Orr, West Paris

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