Maine’s Board of Environmental Protection deserves plaudits for its patience and scrutiny during the many months of hearings regarding the Androscoggin River. It delved into a Herculean task and arrived at a consensus for a course of action.
Unfortunately, the board must prepare to do it again in 2010.
That’s when discharge permits the BEP approved Thursday will expire, and debate will spark anew about the right way to clean the river, and honor the intentions of Sen. Ed Muskie, the patriarch of the federal Clean Water Act.
Neither the paper mills, power company nor environmentalists are settled upon the recommendations of the BEP. The mills question the science; the environmental advocates question the stringency of the discharge limit.
Both may still appeal.
But, as DEP Commissioner David Littell said, the state isn’t in a position to make a popular decision, a near-impossibility anyway in this emotional and complex process. “Our job is to protect the resources of the state,” Littell said. “Not make people happy.”
It’s clear, however, the BEP has done neither with this decision.
The challenge, we see, is gauging improvements to the Androscoggin River during the tight timetable before the permits expire. Compounding this issue is controversy over the science supporting the discharge limits – it’s heady stuff, and hotly debatable.
Thinking the state, mills and environmentalists will agree on the efficacy of the BEP decision, and have the science to support bulletproof conclusions, by the expiration of the discharge permits in 2010 is a bold assumption.
Installation of a second oxygenating bubbler in Gulf Island Pound only, pardon the phrase, churns the water further. More oxygen in the pond is critical to reaching Clean Water Act compliance, but it isn’t a dedicated step toward reducing overall pollution in the river.
Even if operational tomorrow, evaluating the bubbler’s impact would also be challenging by 2010.
Plus, there remains the unknown effect of nonpoint pollution sources on the river, a point of contention between the mills and environmentalists. Until nonpoint is investigated, it cannot be eliminated as a pollution suspect – regardless of theories regarding its presence and impact.
This is quite the workload to accomplish in about two years, but this is what happens when a solution leaves many questions unanswered. But the board now deserves credit after its heavy lifting, and a long respite.
Come 2010, it’s back to work.
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