“I grew up in Lewiston. I remember in the early ’70s the huge foam build-ups,” Theberge said. “It’s a huge improvement from those days.”

But when Elaine Makas looks at the river, the state representative from Lewiston sees pollution, and broken promises. Angered by what she considers a lack of effort by regulators, she wants the state to force paper mills to reduce their discharges and really clean up the river.

“I’ve been told, Be patient, Elaine,’ and Elaine’s been patient much longer than I should have,” she said from a park bench overlooking the river.

She’d like the river here to look blue and clear like it does in New Hampshire, upstream from the three paper mills. “It’s been long enough. I want our children to swim in this river some day. I want to be able to eat the fish,” she said

Both views are shared by many people.

You don’t see dead fish floating belly up on the river. The blanket of foam is gone, as is much of the smell. Compared to how it used to be 25 or 30 years ago, the Androscoggin River is cleaner.

That has brought people, millions of dollars in development and gatherings like this weekend’s Liberty Festival to the Lewiston-Auburn riverbanks. In fact, one group says the river is experiencing a renaissance, calling it the “formerly polluted” Androscoggin.

But claims of the river’s rebirth may be premature. Despite improvements, the mighty Androscoggin remains the dirtiest, most polluted river in Maine:

• Drinking it is still out of the question. The things you would consume still include mercury, cancer-causing dioxin, heavy metals, fecal matter and more.

• While the river is technically “swimmable” according to the state (except certain sections after heavy rains), its chemical contents and algae blooms make parts of it unswimmable to most people. “You’d be swimming in green slime,” said Nick Bennett, staff scientist with the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

• State health advisories recommend people eat no more than six to 12 fish from the Androscoggin a year, stricter guidelines than for most other Maine rivers.

• The three large paper mills on the river legally discharge thousands of pounds of organic pollution daily into the water, far less than 13 years ago but still making them the river’s biggest polluters. On a typical day, International Paper in Jay dumps 4,841 pounds of waste, Fraser in Berlin, N.H., 4,136 pounds and MeadWestvaco in Rumford 4,236 pounds, for a daily total of more than 13,000 pounds.

• And, making the river’s most-polluted status official, the state says 40 miles of the Androscoggin are so bad they don’t even meet the lowest classification of water quality in Maine – the most of any river.

For Makas and other critics of the river’s condition, the facts are enough. But, they say, the Legislature made it worse a few months ago by specifically allowing a section of the Androscoggin River and a section of the St. Croix to meet lower environmental standards than all other Maine rivers.

During debate on the legislation, the Androscoggin was called a “working river,” as if it were a special category, “almost like the slum of rivers,” Makas said. “That’s not fair. Lewiston-Auburn has spent millions in our downtowns. … This is our river, our lifeblood.”

And the fireworks, according to some, are just beginning.

Critical time for the river

No one denies that the Androscoggin is a cleaner river than it used to be. The problem, say critics, is that it is nowhere near as clean as it should be.

Back in 1986 the state reclassified its rivers, giving the Androscoggin a “C” rating, the lowest possible. But the river was in “non-attainment” immediately because it wasn’t meeting the standards for C classification. Almost 20 years later, it still doesn’t.

Everyone agrees the three paper mills are the biggest contributors to the problem – although mill representatives disagree with the state on the size of their contribution. During the last 20 years, they have reduced the amount of pollution flowing into the river, but it still totals almost 5 million pounds a year from the three companies. Enough to keep some of the river in non-attainment of a C – swimmable, fishable – rating.

Toxins and bacteria in the river are still a concern, more so to environmentalists. As Bennett, of the NRCM, says, paper mill wastewater is a “soup of toxic components.”

But those pollutants have been reduced or, in some cases, eliminated, according to the state. Now, the two larger pollution problems are phosphorus and something commonly called BOD – essentially, waste products left over from the papermaking process. Together the phosphorus and BOD act as nutrients, creating algae blooms and depleting the river of oxygen. That degrades water quality and stresses fish populations.

According to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, 77 percent of the phosphorous comes from the mills, with 13 percent from municipal treatment plants and 10 percent from various other sources. For BOD, 83 percent comes from the three mills, 2 from sewage treatment plants and 15 from various other sources.

Makas and environmentalists blame the mills and DEP officials for “negotiating” with the mills in the last two decades rather than enforcing tougher standards. The issue: jobs.

During a meeting last winter of the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee, Makas said, she asked DEP Commissioner Dawn Gallagher why 40 miles of the Androscoggin and 20 miles of the St. Croix were being treated differently than other Class C rivers. “Her response was, Because these are standards that can be met at no costs to the mills,'” Makas said. “I was kind of shocked.”

Makas: Time for being nice’ is over

State lawmakers listened to fears that mill jobs would disappear if higher standards were passed, Makas said, adding that a new attitude is needed.

“Collectively, we’ve never insisted that our river be treated right, and you get the respect you deserve,” Makas said. “It’s also a combination of people elsewhere ignoring Lewiston.”

DEP was scheduled to issue new pollution-limit licenses for paper mills in 1999, but has yet to do so, proof, Makas and other critics say, that the agency is more worried about pleasing the mills than cleaning the river.

“DEP has been the nice guy,” Makas said. “It’s nice to be nice, but the time is over for being nice. It’s time to do something. Don’t keep delaying and delaying. I want this to be a Class B river,” said Makas. “I want people to be able to kayak and canoe down our stretch of the river safely.”

That won’t happen until the Androscoggin is respected as much as any other river in Maine and is no longer being treated “as second-class,” Makas said.

Environmentalists agree.

Politics is why the Androscoggin is not clean, said Naomi Schalit of the environmental group Maine Rivers. Technology is available to make paper while polluting far less than the Androscoggin mills, she said. “The mills have cleaned up their act in other states. Because they have political clout in Maine, they’ve been able to stall and stall at the river’s peril.”

“The mills are completely getting their way here,” added Bennett. “DEP should be issuing licenses so that the river gets cleaned up. … They have the authority to implement the standards, not negotiate with the mills.”

The Androscoggin is the most polluted because of “a class issue. Because this river flows through poor communities with high percentages of employment in the mills, this river and its communities are being treated as fourth-class,” Schalit said. “We’ve got four categories of rivers, and this doesn’t even meet the lowest.”

For years, that was an accepted price for jobs, she added. “But it’s clear that this community is not about to take it anymore. There’s a growing awareness that this community’s future is tied to a healthy river.”

Lewiston’s Theberge appears to be an example of that awareness. While glad the river has improved, he’d like to see it swimmable. “It wouldn’t bother me if I fell in, but I wouldn’t swim,” Theberge said. “It would be nice if it were clean enough to eat the fish from the river. I wouldn’t.”

Tomorrow: The DEP and the mills respond to environmentalists. And the success story of another once-polluted river: the Kennebec.