AUGUSTA — Steve Arnold, plant manager of the Paris Utility District, said the analogy best describing the district’s request to relax its standard on the amount of copper discharged into the Little Androscoggin River is driving on the highway.

“Everyone’s always been driving 80 safely,” he said. “Now they’re changing the speed limit so you don’t get penalized for it.” 

The comments came outside the public hearing before regulators Thursday morning concerning the sewage treatment facility’s request for a site-specific exemption from state and federal standards on the concentration of copper flowing into the river after treatment. 

The Little Androscoggin River flows from Paris, through Oxford and Mechanic Falls before joining the Androscoggin River near Lown Peace Bridge in Auburn. 

The district, a quasi-governmental entity, is asking the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to allow the facility to deviate from state standards and be granted permission for a higher cap on the concentration of copper coming out of facility.

District officials contend that the higher emission is scientifically proven to not harm people or the environment, but that without relaxing it, they would consistently bump against the bar, resulting in fines. 

The board, which heard more than an hour of testimony as part of a process for granting site-specific exemptions, is expected to rule at a later date. 

If approved, Paris would become the third local entity to receive exemption from a statewide law since the program began in 2005, said Gregg Wood, of Maine DEP’s wastewater licensing office. 

The standards were originally set when Maine adopted the federal standards on water quality in the 1970s following passage of the Clean Water Act.

The Paris Utility District was built to handle many more times the liquid sewage than currently accepted, Arnold said. It was built in the 1970s to service the town’s industrial users.

When the A.C. Lawrence Leather Co. closed its doors in 1985, the facility was left with about 1,000 residential users.  

At the hearing, Arnold testified that inflowing raw sewage contains copper at 150 to 300 parts per billion. The water goes through a variety of treatment procedures before the solids are separated and loaded into a storage container.

After treatment, the peak copper concentration is about 40 parts per billion. Under its current license, the ceiling for concentration rates is 20 to 23 parts per billion, Arnold told regulators. 

Lacking industrial users, most of the copper enters the sewage pumped to the facility from brake pads, medicine, vitamins and other household products washed down the drain. 

Permitting the exemption, Arnold said, would realign standards with sound, scientific data gathered by independent consultants hired after the district was fined $30,000 in 2009 for violating its license. 

Patrick Gwinn of the Portland-based water-quality analysts Integral Consulting told the board that his group studied the effect of copper levels on river chemistry. The study, which was done in conjunction with Maine DEP and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, found the river could safely absorb higher rates before the copper molecules begin binding to fish gills.

“This isn’t something I’m just pulling off the shelf,” Gwinn said. 

Wood, who also testified Thursday, told the board that criteria imposed around the country might not apply at a local level. 

“Numerically, there appears to be an issue, but in reality there’s none,” Gwinn said. 

The lengthy review process tries to pinpoint whether the facility can be improved. The Paris Utility District completed a $10.5 million overhaul, completely updating its facility in 2010.

“It’s a big deal. These things are issued very rarely,” Wood said of the DEP.

The standards that form the state statute do not appear to be in any immediate threat of change, he said.

“It would take a significant amount of money to go around the state … to develop an alternative criterion based upon each stream and river,” Wood said. “We just don’t have the horsepower to do that.”

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