By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

A coalition of environmental groups is seeking to overturn Androscoggin River discharge permits issued to two paper mills.

A state water quality permit issued to Florida Power and Light to operate the Gulf Island dam also has come under scrutiny, as have wastewater treatment permits for the towns of Livermore Falls and Jay.

Members of the coalition fear that the permits will set a national precedent. Maine has already set one precedent regarding the river, said Steve Hinchman, a staff lawyer with the Conservation Law Foundation. That came when the state said waters backed up in Gulf Island Pond no longer must meet standards set by the federal Clean Water Act.

Now, Hinchman and others say permits issued to International Paper in Jay and NewPage in Rumford by Dawn Gallagher, the state’s commissioner of environmental protection, go too far. And he’s afraid other states could be encouraged to follow Maine’s lead.

Gallagher, though, says the permits were issued with the advice and guidance of the Maine attorney general’s office and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

10-year life

The permits allow the mills and the Jay and Livermore Falls wastewater treatment facilities to continue to discharge into the Androscoggin. The permits are valid for five years, but they give the mills 10 years to come into compliance with water quality standards.

“The state and EPA have not issued new Clean Water Act permits for these paper mills since 1986, so they are already nearly 20 years overdue,” Hinchman said. “Now they want to give the mills another 10 years to meet state standards. That’s not just illegal, it’s wrong.”

Neil Ward, a member of the Androscoggin River Alliance, noted that 32 years have passed since Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie championed the Clean Water Act. “And we’re still waiting for this river to meet even the lowest standards of the act,” Ward said.

He and Hinchman both said Maine lacks the will to force the mills to clean the river.

“We’re challenging these permits because they don’t go far enough, fast enough,” said Ward.

Gallagher said the mills, Florida Power and Light and the the towns, also are appealing, calling the permits too restrictive.

And in Florida Power and Light’s case, there is also a jurisdictional dispute, said Gallagher, that might not be settled until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a case involving Florida Power and Light and the S.D. Warren Co. in Maine.

A separate appeal on the permits was filed by the Natural Resources Council of Maine, Gallagher added. Friday was the deadline for filing such appeals. The permits had been issued in late September.

Hinchman’s appeal, which also is supported by Maine Rivers and the Androscoggin Lake Improvement Committee, will, like the others, be heard by the Maine Board of Environmental Protection. The board oversees state EPA action and could void the permits issued by Gallagher.

Gallagher said the board likely won’t be able to take up the appeals for three to five months, depending on what it wants as evidence.

“This is a part of the process,” she said, “and I respect that process.”

Befuddling’ process

The BEP is less political than Gallagher, an appointee of the governor, and less political than the Legislature, which sanctioned a move to hold the Androscoggin’s Gulf Island Pond to a standard below the federal Class C designation it otherwise must meet, said Hinchman. Because of that, he said he expects “a fair hearing” on the appeal.

Ward wasn’t so sure.

“This whole process has been so befuddling,” he said. “I’m not sure what will happen.”

Ward believes greed is the driving factor in allowing the mills to continue to pollute the river.

It would take $30 million to clean up International Paper to the point where its effluent would meet Clean Water Act standards, Ward said. “Is that too much to invest?”

He said that if IP’s chief executive officer and eight of its other top officers would accept pay of $1 million annually instead of the millions more they now get, the company could pay for the improvements in a year.

“Now, 10 percent of the state’s people have to live downriver from the mills” and the polluted river, he said.

He said that if the mills invested in the technology needed to make the improvements, they’d be more likely to remain in Maine and to continue providing employment.

He and Hinchman said that if the permits aren’t overturned, they fear other operations in other states will seek to follow Maine’s lead, weakening Clean Water Act provisions in the process.

Mill representatives have said they operate in accord with federal and state laws and secure necessary permits to continue their operations.

They also point to vast improvements in the quality of the river, which meets Class B standards in places above Rumford and Class C – with the exception of Gulf Island Pond – elsewhere.

Gallagher said Lewiston and Auburn are interested observers in the permitting process. Not only are the cities downstream from the substandard Gulf Island Pond, both cities are under orders to separate their storm and sanitary sewer systems.

That separation has to be completed by 2014, Gallagher said.

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