Lewiston and Auburn are just not doing enough to clean up combined sewer overflows.

Sun Journal readers need a truer picture regarding the Androscoggin River cleanup.

I sponsored color-odor-foam legislation (passed in 1989) and the dioxin bill (passed in 1998). These bills have resulted in a much cleaner river, one now used much more for recreation.

Last year, I sponsored the Department of Environmental Protection’s bill lowering phosphorus discharges into the river. The Sun Journal was the only daily paper in Maine that didn’t acknowledge the bill’s existence as it went through the legislative process.

Unlike the Sun Journal, the Natural Resources Council of Maine, Maine Audubon and the League of Conservation Voters, I supported the unanimous Natural Resources Committee report on Rep. Elaine Makas’ oxygen bill and my phosphorus bill. It will result in a 25- to 30-percent reduction in biological oxygen demand (or BOD) and phosphorus discharges into the Androscoggin River.

In the last year, the Sun Journal has editorialized against the unanimous committee report regarding Rep. Thomas Saviello’s involvement as a member of the Natural Resources Committee, against the license granted to the Rumford and Jay mills, and against the Legislature granting a 10-year cleanup timeframe to the paper mills.

Since then:

• The Legislature passed the Clean Rivers Bill 115-31 in the House and 32-3 in the Senate;

• The Ethics Commission found no conflict of interest in Rep. Saviello’s service on the committee; and

• U.S. District Court Judge Woodcock threw out NRCM’s suit against International Paper’s license.

As a legislator who’s worked for 20 years on clean Androscoggin River legislation, I’m very concerned that the Sun Journal isn’t continuing to inform its readers about the most serious threat to Androscoggin River water quality – combined sewer overflows (or CSO).

New information about CSO discharge levels has been available from the Department of Environmental Protection for more than four months. Readers should realize that Lewiston-Auburn CSO discharges increased last year 350 percent. This happened because:

• Lewiston-Auburn spent too much money on coliseums, parking garages, mill re-development, and lavish city offices rather than more aggressively separating their sewer and storm water pipes. Until then, there’s nothing the Lewiston-Auburn Water Pollution Authority can do.

• Rainfall in 2004 was 33 inches and a record 66 inches in 2005.

L-A discharged 767,072,451 gallons of untreated sewerage into the Androscoggin River last year compared to 170,498,659 gallons in 2004.

DEP’s CSO director, John True, says it will be eight to nine years before the State DEP-approved sewer project is complete and this pollution ends. I hope the Sun Journal will agree with DEP that the most severe threat to the Androscoggin River below the Gulf Island Dam comes from CSOs – CSOs that will take Lewiston-Auburn longer to clean up than it will take the mills to meet last year’s unanimous Clean Rivers Bill.

CSO is at the top of Environment Maine’s priorities list. Bacterial contaminations have caused a 370 percent increase in beach closings.

Cleaning up CSO discharges into Maine’s rivers isn’t on NRCM’s, Maine Audubon’s or the League of Conservation Voters’ priority lists – it should be their top priority as well.

It’s hypocritical that the Sun Journal has editorialized for the wrong spending priorities, rather than cleaning up CSO discharge more aggressively, while pointing an accusational finger at the Legislature and the paper mills for not doing their jobs.

I’m proud of last year’s Clean Rivers Bill. It will result in a cleaner Androscoggin River north of Lewiston-Auburn. However, the huge increase in CSO discharges has resulted in a dirtier river south of Lewiston-Auburn.

The Sun Journal does its readers a disservice by criticizing the paper mill’s 10-year cleanup plan, while supporting Lewiston-Auburn’s 10-year cleanup plan. In the future, I’m hopeful the Sun Journal will support a 5-year cleanup plan for all dischargers into the Androscoggin River.

Sen. John Nutting of Leeds represents Senate District 17.