JAY — Selectmen agreed Monday to hold a joint meeting with the Planning Board to discuss a request by Verso Paper Corp. officials to suspend the town’s Environmental Control and Protection Ordinance.

Any changes to the ordinance would have to go through the town’s voters before it was enacted.

The ordinance was enacted by Jay voters on May 21, 1988, and has been amended nearly two dozen times since. It was enacted during a labor strike at International Paper after there was a chlorine leak. IP was the former owner of the Androscoggin Mill, which is now owned by Verso.

Part of the ordinance allows the town to regulate industrial emissions and discharges into the Androscoggin River and ground, and solid waste landfills. The town’s standards under the ordinance cannot be more lenient than the state or federal regulations but may be stricter.

Voters have rejected repeal of the ordinance in previous years.

The Planning Board oversees the ordinance with guidance from Environmental Code Enforcement Officer Shiloh Ring and other consultants.

The money for Ring’s salary and benefits, legal consultants, testing and other items related to the ordinance are paid for by permit fees from the industries.

Townspeople voted in June to lower a $1 million cap on the permit fees to $800,000. That means that permit holders do not have to pay for permits until the $1 million currently in the account drops below $800,000.

Selectmen board Chairman Steve McCourt, a Verso employee, said mill officials invited him and Town Manager Ruth Marden to a meeting to discuss suspending the ordinance.

The ordinance pretty much mimics what the state does, McCourt said.

He suggested setting up a committee to look into how the ordinance could be suspended.

“This is quite a cost to the mill,” McCourt said and this is in addition to the permit fees.

The intent would not be to eliminate the ordinance, he said. Ring would still monitor permit holders, he said, and if the suspension of the town’s ordinance did not work out, it could be reinstated.

If some of the environmental duties with lifted off of Ring, she could fill the full-time code enforcement position and building inspector to monitor building codes the town will be required to have in 2012. Her salary could still come out of the ordinance account.

Verso environmental representative Tom Saviello said the mill pays $260,000 a year for permit fees and three staff members spend time answering questions from the town’s consultants.

When the ordinance was put in place it was necessary, he said, since the state was still working on its own regulations. But now the state and federal overseers have moved ahead of the town.

The money would be better spent in the mill working to improve preventions, Saviello said. The mill has spent millions of dollars to improve upon the way it does business environmentally, he said.

Planning Board Chairman Delance White and other board members spoke out against suspending the ordinance.

White said selectmen and mill officials did not come to the board to discuss the matter.

“It’s a slap in the face,” White said.

The ordinance was enacted because the state wasn’t quick enough to respond to possible pollution issues so the townspeople took it upon themselves to regulate it closely, he said.

Since it was established the river and the air have become cleaner, he said, and the mill’s 50-plus acre landfill has safeguards built around to prevent and capture any pollution that leach out.

The Planning Board was involved in that, not selectmen, he said.

He accused mill officials of not liking the town’s ordinance and that’s why they want it suspended.

“We’re too close,” he said.

Selectmen asked mill officials to draw up a list of concerns including duplicate questions the mill has to answer at both the state and local level and asked Ring to draw up her concerns.

When asked, Ring said she could come up with alternative questions to everything Saviello pointed out.

“There are always two sides to a story,” Ring said. “I’m not looking for a fight tonight.”

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