To the editor:
On April 4, 1986, Maine’s Legislature passed L.D. 2283 “An Act to Amend the Classification System for Maine Waters.” Initially introduced by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP), the bill would, according to Sen. Ronald E. Usher of Westbrook, “allow the State to meet its’ obligations under the Federal Clean Water Act.”
After over two years of deliberations, the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Energy and Natural Resources had unanimously endorsed adding into Maine’s water quality statutes a new concept known as “biological monitoring,” and a Clean Water Act-required anti-degradation policy.
First, let’s consider the biological monitoring component. The diversity and composition of a stream’s benthic (bottom-dwelling) macroinvertebrate community directly measures the health of aquatic life. Aquatic insects and other invertebrates not only integrate the full range of environmental influences (chemical, physical and biological), they also complete their life cycles in the water and so are “continuous monitors” of environmental quality.
The MDEP had already launched its Biological Monitoring and Biocriteria Development Program in 1983. For the first five years, the statewide program (headquartered in Augusta) was staffed with 1.25 full-time equivalent biologists. In 1988, a second full-time biologist was hired, and a third added in 1997. Today, there are four biologists assigned to this chronically underfunded program.
The MDEP created a standardized in-stream sampling protocol and with the help of insect ecologist Dr. Frank Drummond at the University of Maine a statistical model (with 23 variables) that determines the classification attained at the site sampled.
The bio-monitoring program supplies MDEP with water quality information for such purposes as evaluation of river and stream classification attainment, assessing the downstream impacts of wastewater discharges, and determining the effects of nonpoint (diffuse) pollution sources such as agricultural runoff.
Maine’s classification system for rivers and streams “begins” with C (the lowest classification) and proceeds upward in water quality to B, A, and then AA. Most of the river miles on the Aroostook’s main stem from the entrance of the Presque Isle Stream to the Canadian border are by statute Class C. However, all classified waters “must be of sufficient quality to support all species of fish indigenous to the receiving waters” — which means cold-water species such as pollution-intolerant trout and salmon.
From the confluence of the Presque Isle Stream to the Rt. 11 Bridge in Ashland the river is Class B by statute. Upstream of the Rt. 11 Bridge, the river and its tributaries are either Class A or Class AA.
Generally, the Aroostook’s tributaries below the Rt. 11 Bridge are Class B. However, Beaver Brook (Ashland), Gardner Brook (Wade), and the Little Madawaska River (above the Caribou-Connor Township line) are currently Class A. In contrast, Merritt Brook (Presque Isle) and Colony Brook (Fort Fairfield) — based on MDEP biological monitoring — are not attaining their statutory Class B.
Due to the limited staffing, MDEP divided the state into five major river basin areas and generally conducts biological sampling within them on an “every five year rotating schedule.” The St. John watershed (including the Aroostook) is one of the five major basin areas.
Based on publicly available (web-based) reports, the Aroostook watershed has received adequate attention from the MDEP biomonitoring unit as our turn comes up each five years. I appreciate that!
Finally, let’s look at the other major feature of the 1986 legislation. The “anti-degradation” provision (Title 38 MRSA §464 (4) (F)) still reads the same today as when it was written. This environmental tool says “Where the actual quality of any classified water exceeds the minimum standards of the next highest classification, that higher water quality shall be maintained and protected. The board [Board of Environmental Protection] shall recommend to the Legislature that the water be reclassified in the next higher classification.”
More on that next time.
Steve Sutter is a retired agricultural and resource economist living on a Presque Isle riverfront property that has been in his family since April 12, 1854. This is the eleventh installment of his series on the history of the Aroostook River.
