On Sept. 27, environmental experts, emergency responders and others gathered along the Fore River in Portland to mark a solemn anniversary. Ten years prior, the tanker Julie N slammed into the Casco Bay Bridge, gashing the vessel’s side and gushing 180,000 gallons of heating oil into the river. Officials now say the river shows no trace of the spill, a testament to the cleanup by man and nature.

Lost amid this celebration of environmental success was a less-laudable milestone. Twenty-five years ago this week, Maine joined Pennsylvania and New York to petition the Environmental Protection Agency for stricter enforcement of the federal Clean Air Act, a battle still raging today.

And while business and government can restore a river’s health in a decade, freeing Maine’s air from pollutants in 2 decades remains a process fraught with bureaucracy, lawsuits and mistrust.

The 1981 issue was acid rain in Maine caused by sulfuric emissions from the Midwest. Today’s is soot, on which the EPA declined recently to enforce strict annual exposure levels, despite recommendations from its scientists and evidence the restrictions could save thousands of lives.

For Mainers who live at the end of America’s tailpipe, the EPA’s decision means dirtier air and more allegations of dirty politics. This, air quality aside, is the real environmental tragedy.

Maine’s record in trying to secure strict EPA enforcement of the Clean Air Act is, in simple terms, broken. In March 1984, in announcing a lawsuit against the EPA over acid rain, Maine Attorney General Jim Tierney said, “It is an Orwellian phenomenon that six states in our country must band together to sue the [EPA] to get environmental protection.”

In October 2003, in announcing another lawsuit against the EPA to preserve the Clean Air Act, Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe said, “It is indeed ironic that [the EPA] would try so hard to undermine one of our nation’s most important health and environmental protection laws.”

We are grateful to Maine’s attorneys general for continuing to hold the EPA accountable for the Clean Air Act. It’s appalling, though, that Maine and other states must keep a wary eye on Washington, as the pressure to relax EPA standards on air quality from industrial and energy interests is powerful, and seemingly endless.

The state remains a plaintiff in two pending lawsuits against the EPA, one to change policy on mercury emissions, the other to institute federal standards for carbon dioxide emissions, which is before the U.S. Supreme Court. Both should be resolved next year, according to Assistant Attorney General Jerry Reid.

Government and business worked together to clean the Fore River in 1996; 10 years later, the river’s ecosystem is vibrant. Can they work together in 2006 to clean the air, so that within the next 10 years or so more residents of Maine and neighboring states can draw healthy breaths?

Let’s hope the answer isn’t just blowing in the wind.