BANGOR (AP) — A federal trial is beginning this week to determine whether a chemical company responsible for dumping mercury from a closed plant in Orrington will be required to clean contamination from along the banks of the Penobscot River and the mouth of Penobscot Bay.

The trial scheduled to start Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Bangor comes two months after Maine’s high court ruled that the company, Mallinckrodt US, had to carry out an estimated $130 million cleanup on the site of the former HoltraChem Manufacturing Co.

The Portland Press Herald (http://bit.ly/1tB2jFG ) reported while the state case focused on the land where the plant stood, the federal suit brought by environmental groups focuses on cleaning up the contamination along the river.

Mallinckrodt said some remediation options could cause “more harm than good.”

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