RUMFORD — The investigation into the release of black liquor into the air Dec. 10 from the ND Paper mill, which resulted in brown snow, is ongoing and the town continuing to work with the mill on a resolution, Town Manager George O’Keefe told the Select Board at its Jan. 2 meeting.

“We’ll continue to dialogue with the mill as necessary on that,” O’Keefe said.

The status update followed a report from Maine Environmental Laboratory that O’Keefe said Dec. 19 indicated there was a somewhat elevated pH on the Three Fields Complex, with levels of mercury and barium below the EPA safe drinking water level and other heavy metals not detected.

On the morning of Dec. 10, ND Paper said its mill experienced an operational issue that resulted in equipment venting to the air outside.

The issue was quickly mitigated, ND Paper said, but the depressurization resulted in residual black liquor, a byproduct of the paper-making process, being released into the air and into a section of town.

The release resulted in falling snow turning brown. Town officials said brown snow fell in areas in close proximity to the mill, especially on Falmouth, Cumberland and Waldo streets.

Rumford officials and ND Paper said the black liquor released is not toxic, but each warned people to avoid touching the brown snow because the material can irritate the skin and eyes.

“People need to know that for the time being I’m being very careful not to make any statements that would jeopardize the town standing as the complainant to DEP in regards to this event,” O’Keefe said. “Up to this point, we have not mentioned to the public that the town is the complainant on this event.

“We are impacted, and the complainant, not only on behalf of town government facilities, but we also filed the complaint on behalf of a number of residents who brought the concerns regarding this event to us,” he added.

O’Keefe said the mill and the town were working on a resolution and that the mill’s initial statement remains that this event was unacceptable.

“The town is very much in agreement with that and beyond that, we’re reserving comment until a future date,” O’Keefe said.

Board Chairperson Chris Brennick asked that the incident be discussed further at a future meeting after the “situation has been fully adjudicated” so that the board can be “transparent with what our process was.” O’Keefe said that would be appropriate.

“I wanted to make sure to the public that at this time there’s an ongoing investigation,” Brennick said. “When that investigation is concluded, we will fully have an agenda item where we discuss what our actions were and why we took those actions … so that if something like this happens in the future, we are making sure that we’re following best practices with that.”

O’Keefe added that the town had filed the complaint with the DEP, “so I want to preserve our standing and our ability to seek whatever form of redress is appropriate within that particular process.”

He added, “So my concern is ensuring that we don’t get into a situation where some type of back and forth goes into the public realm between ourselves, the mill and DEP which really needs to be handled through an investigative process.”

O’Keefe said it is important that the town is able to “preserve the integrity of the town’s position as a complainant,” while also addressing public concerns.

He said all the concerns that they’ve seen and heard are entirely understandable and “they have to be addressed and we are doing that through the investigative process and then I think once that is complete, a public forum on this is absolutely merited.

“However, I don’t want to encourage or lead the selectmen to believe that other steps prior to the completion of that process are OK and won’t result in some type of loss of our ability to pursue redress. I’m very concerned about that. The public may want some type of redress and they may not realize that if you attempt to hold a forum and start to pressure the process, there could be undue influence seen as being put on the investigating agency,” O’Keefe said.