Compiled by the Androscoggin River Alliance, February 24, 2005
·
The
River is still one of the dirtiest in the state. It
is far from cleaned up.
·
The
pollution problems in the River limit the number and type of fish that live
there. By law, cold water fish, like brook trout and landlocked salmon,
should be able to live in Gulf Island Pond, but they can’t because it’s too
polluted. This is the crux of the
so-called “dissolved oxygen” issue: Fish
and other aquatic creatures need oxygen to breathe, which is why it is
important. Clean water holds more oxygen
than polluted water, so the stricter the oxygen standard, the cleaner the river
must be.
·
The
mills on the River are by far the largest causes of the pollution.
According to
DEP they account for 83% of the oxygen depleting pollution entering the pond
and 77% of the phosphorus pollution to the pond. Phosphorus is a nutrient pollutant that
causes algae blooms (green slime on the river) and depletes oxygen in the
water.[1] (see attached tables) The phosphorus causes enormous algae blooms,
rendering the water unusable for swimming.
The algae blooms and heavy BOD load also cause non-compliance with the
state’s lowest dissolved oxygen (DO) standards, making the river unfit for cold
water fish species.
·
Sewage treatment
plants upstream from L/A are concerned that the Makas bill, which will hold the
Androscoggin and the
·
The mills say that the
discharges from the L/A sewage treatment plant and CSOs are significantly
harming the river, and that before L/A takes the position that the mills need
to clean up, the city needs to get its own house in order. This is
comparing apples and oranges. The CSO
discharges from L/A are legal, permitted discharges that occur only
after large rain events. The city has a long-term plan to fix these
discharges and they are on track to do so. According to the DEP, the
CSOs from the L/A area discharged 331,522,913 gallons of water in 2003, the
latest year for which we have data. In contrast, IP alone discharges 40.9
(McCubbin report, Table 4, Page 5) million gallons of wastewater per
day, thus surpassing the total annual wastewater flow from the
CSOs in 9 days. Regarding
the treatment plant, the L/A treatment plant is in compliance with standards as
is the water downstream from the plant. There are not dissolved
oxygen violations downstream from L/A. Furthermore,
based on 1998-99 data averaged over 18 months from
January 1998 through June 1999, obtained from the 1999 NPDES permit for
the L/A treatment plant, the most recent permit available, the average
discharge from the L/A treatment plant is 1,300 lbs per day of BOD. This
is just over 1/3 of the amount of BOD discharged by IP, which is 3,450 pounds
of BOD per day (Source: McCubbin Report, Table 4, page 5). In other
words, IP discharges 2.6 times the amount of organic pollution as the second
largest metropolitan area in
·
The amount of BOD
(a measure of organic pollution) discharged by the L/A CSOs is very, very small
compared to the mills’ BOD discharges.
In terms of BOD, the CSOs’ annual discharge is 276,400 pounds, based on DEP figures. In
comparison, the IP mill at Jay discharges 3,450 pounds of BOD per day (McCubbin
report, Table 4, Page 5). Therefore, IP will surpass the total annual
amount of BOD discharged by the CSOs in 80 days, and this is just
IP. The three pulp and paper mills as a whole on the Androscoggin
discharge 16,480
lbs per day (McCubbin Report, Table 4, Page 5), which means they will surpass
the total annual discharge of the L/A CSOs in just 16 days .
Note: this is based on an assumption of 100
mg/l BOD L/A CSO wastewater, which was communicated to us by John True of
DEP on February 24, 2005.
·
For years, the paper companies on the river
have sought exemptions from environmental laws and standards to avoid making
fundamental changes in their processes that would clean up the river. As far
back as the 1980’s, the legislature bowed to the will of the industries and
exempted Gulf Island Pond from all water quality standards. However, the US Environmental Protection
Agency rejected this move as a violation of federal law.
·
Mill owners, such as International Paper, have the money to invest in
upgrading their
·
The longevity of the mills, and mill jobs,
will be enhanced by investment. The 2004 “Indicators of Health” report, issued by
the Governor’s Steering Committee on Natural Resource-Based Industries, states that:
“Increasing or maintaining capital investment in
·
In the fall of 2003,
“There
are many technologies and operating practice that have been in use for some
time in profitable, operating mills which can potentially be used to reduce the
discharges of pollutants that affect the
Mills such as Glatfelter in Spring Grove, PA, and several mills in
Finland, that consistently exceed the industry average return in capital
invested make extensive use of most of the technologies suggested herein as
being useful for reducing phosphorus and BOD discharges, demonstrating that
they are not unrealistic economically. These mills rely on a combination of
appropriate manufacturing processes and effluent treatment to achieve low
discharges cost effectively.”
Source: