PARIS — The Paris Utility District is requesting an exemption from state regulations allowing it to safely double the amount of copper discharged into the Little Androscoggin River. 

The PUD is asking the Maine Board of Environmental Protection to allow the facility to deviate from the statewide standard for copper levels allowed in a downstream stretch of the river.  

The sewer-treatment facility, which services parts of downtown and Paris Hill, will present its case before the board at 9 a.m. Thursday during a public hearing at the Calumet Club at 334 West River Road  in Augusta The public is welcome to attend and testify. 

The application for the change is the culmination of a consent agreement with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, which found the district to be in violation of its license agreement and assessed a fine of roughly $30,000, plant Manager Steve Arnold said.

After that, in 2011, the district hired Portland-based water-quality consultants Integral Consulting to look at the effect the increased copper levels would have on the ecosystem. 

The findings, later sanctioned by the department, found that the copper could be discharged nearly four and a half times greater than the state mandates without having a detrimental impact on water quality and wildlife. 

“You can drink nearly 60 times more copper than what we’re discharging,” Arnold said.  

By law, utilities districts must renew their licenses with the state every five years. Exemptions from statute must receive prior approval even if the levels being requested are found by a third-party consultant to be safe. 

Among a variety of tests, the district measures the levels of toxic metals, including lead, silver, cadmium, zinc and magnesium, in the water discharged from its facility to ensure it complies with state standards,

The state determines each sewage district’s metals discharge level by looking at the lowest flow in a 10-year period, when the levels of metals dissolved in the water would be expected to reach peak levels. 

The testimony from the Paris Utility District and the public at the hearing will factor into the board’s eventual ruling, Cynthia Bertocci, its executive analyst, said Thursday. 

“The board would have to find the criteria being proposed are based upon sound, scientific rationale and are protective of the most sensitive use of the water body,” Bertocci said. 

If approved, the exemption would last for the five-year duration of the district’s license.