PARIS — Regulators say the relatively small size of the Little Androscoggin River makes copper levels discharged by the Paris Utility District appear more harmful than they really are. 

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s water quality manager,  Brian Kavanah, said Wednesday that Paris’ situation appears worrisome at first but does not pose a danger. 

“On paper, it may look like Paris is creating a condition (that is) unacceptable but in the river, that’s not what’s happening,” Kavanah said. 

Water flowing into the treatment plant from 1,000 Paris residents passes through a variety of processes before being discharged into the Little Androscoggin River. 

Last week, the district requested a site-specific exemption from the Maine Board of Environmental Protection, explaining to regulators that it could not meet the state’s requirement for the amount of copper in the discharged water. 

However, Kavanah said the request, which, if approved, would double the limit on copper the state allows the Paris Utility District, is not a cause for concern.

Instead, redefining the site’s limits would set the bar two-and-a-half times lower than levels deemed to adversely impact fish and other invertebrates. 

“With Paris they found out, in fact, the river could take a larger amount of copper without it being impacted,” he said.  

In 2009, regulators fined the district $28,000 for consistently exceeding that limit, prompting a review of its procedures. The incident helped prompt an overhaul to the wastewater treatment facility, which completed a $10.5 million upgrade in 2010. 

Paris is not alone in seeing elevated copper levels. According to Lewiston-Auburn Water Pollution Control Authority Superintendent Clayton Richardson, among the various sources of copper that gets into water is leaching from old sewer pipes.

Yet, what makes Paris unique, Kavanah said, is that the Little Androscoggin River is relatively small among the rivers in Maine that have treatment plant discharges, spiking the Paris Utility District’s outflow of copper. 

Kavanah said the Maine DEP takes the most stringent of federal standards — those regulating the threat to aquatic, as opposed to human, life — by evaluating the river on its seven lowest days over a 10-year period. 

In 2011, a consultant group studied the effect of elevated copper levels on the river, finding it could absorb nearly 4½ times the current limit before harming fish species. 

Kirsten Hebert, executive director of Maine Rural Waste Water Association, said that if proven to protect the environment, relaxing the state’s standard to reflect a local entity’s unique situation is the sensible thing to do. 

“They can’t pass on fees to ratepayers for technological upgrades that meet the state standard, but don’t necessarily impact health,” Herbert said. 

Regulators said the board could make a ruling in November.