AUGUSTA – A memo on cleanup of the Androscoggin River shows a leading state lawmaker playing hardball politics with the Lewiston delegation and threatening to make Lewiston-Auburn build a $30 million drinking water treatment plant.
The lawmaker, John Martin, D-Eagle Lake, was apparently angered by Lewiston lawmakers focusing on paper mill discharges and not other sources of pollution.
The April 22 e-mailed memo was acquired by the Androscoggin River Alliance through Maine’s Freedom of Information Act and released to the Sun Journal. In it, Martin was reported to have said he “could make trouble for Rep. Makas by putting in the legislation a provision for the Lewiston-Auburn water district to come into compliance by having to build a $30 million (drinking water) treatment plant …”
Rep. Elaine Makas, D-Lewiston, led the delegation in pushing for a cleaner river by placing greater restrictions on paper mill discharges into the Androscoggin.
The Martin memo was written by Gov. John Baldacci’s senior policy adviser, Richard Davies, to Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Dawn Gallagher. The governor’s staff had met with Martin about Androscoggin River legislation and then briefed the commissioner.
In a recent interview, Davies stood by the memo. Asked what a treatment plant for Lake Auburn had to do with the river legislation, Davies responded, “Nothing.”
The year before, Davies explained, a dead animal in Lake Auburn degraded water quality for a few days. Technically, that could have forced taxpayers to spend millions to build a treatment plant. Most drinking water bodies in the country have treatment plants. Martin knew about that, and saw an opportunity, Davies said.
“John’s a bright person. … He was casting around his leverage.” Had Martin carried out his alleged threat, Gov. John Baldacci would not have supported it, Davies said.
Martin is the former long-time speaker of the House. He now serves on the Natural Resources Committee, a key panel that has jurisdiction over environmental laws, including legislation on water quality.
Martin: L-A should clean up, too
Asked recently about the memo’s reference to making trouble for Makas, Martin replied, “I didn’t say that.” He offered no reason for why Davies would write that in a memo.
Martin did express frustration, and grew cross in the interview, saying the paper mills are not the only sources polluting the Androscoggin River.
A veteran state politician, Martin earned a reputation for being an environmentalist. He still is, Martin said.
Municipal sewage treatment plant waste water, including Lewiston-Auburn’s, keeps the river from meeting federal Clean Water Act regulations because of all the “shit in the river,” Martin said. Swimming in human waste is worse than what comes from the mills, Martin has said.
If the mills were going to be forced to cut pollution, the cities of Lewiston and Auburn should also be forced to cut back on their waste, Martin insisted.
When Martin raised that issue during State House deliberations last spring, it provoked objections from Lewiston City Administrator Jim Bennett. Bennett said Lewiston was already under a DEP order to reduce sewage spills during heavy storms. In the next 10 years, Lewiston taxpayers will spend $36 million as part of a DEP-approved plan to reduce the problem.
When recently asked for his position on Androscoggin cleanup, Martin wondered aloud why municipal pollution isn’t talked about the same way mill pollution is.
“Pollution is pollution!” he said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s private or public.”
It’s not fair, he complained, to put pressure on the paper mills while turning a blind eye to municipal pollution. “You can’t be two-faced.”
If the paper mills are going to be required to adhere “100 percent” to the federal Clean Water Act, so should municipalities, Martin said. That was the point he was trying to make, he said.
“Makas can’t have it both ways.” Some people are so blinded about municipal pollution going into the Androscoggin, Martin said, “it shocks me.”
River advocates: Martin was bullying
Lewiston legislators have reacted strongly to his message.
“The idea that Lewiston-Auburn falls into the same category of polluters as the paper mills is absurd,” Sen. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, said in May when Martin raised the issue. If the paper mills worked as hard as the cities to reduce pollution, “we wouldn’t be talking about this.”
While Martin insists he was simply raising both sides of the debate, others insist he was trying to intimidate.
“Lewiston-Auburn should not be singled out for punishment because we’re willing to stand up for ourselves and expect the state to do their job and protect the environment,” said Neil Ward of the Androscoggin River Alliance. He called Martin’s methods outlined in the memo “shocking.”
Makas and Rotundo said Martin was bullying. “He was trying to shut me up,” Makas said. “I didn’t back off.”
Members of the Lewiston delegation didn’t get the legislation passed they were pushing for: reducing mill pollution so that the Androscoggin is clean enough to meet environmental laws in five years. The 10-year plan won.
However, DEP officials later voided the second half of the 10-year pollution agreement with the mills after acknowledging the state inappropriately worked on the agreements at a Rumford paper mill, using the mill’s computers.
Then in a dramatic move last week, the DEP yanked the discharge license it just gave to International Paper Co.
The Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee will ultimately review those agreements and progress on the river’s cleanup.
Makas and Rotundo said they’re not concerned about possible intimidation next year when the issue resurfaces.
“We still need a cleaner river. We’re still not getting it,” Makas said. “I haven’t given up.”
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