Selected events on the Aroostook River: 1987-2000

In 1987, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP) attempted to collect baseline water quality data on the Aroostook River for use in licensing and classification decisions. A calibration data set was collected to use with the newly-developed EPA computer model QUAL2EU, but an additional verification data set to complete the dissolved oxygen (DO) model was never collected.
Also in 1987, the Federal Clean Water Act was amended to include an anti-degradation provision. Maine’s corresponding policy provides, in part, that MDEP may only issue a waste discharge license which would result in lowering the existing quality of any water body (that currently meets or exceeds standards) “after making a finding, following opportunity for public participation, that the action is necessary to achieve important economic or social benefits to the State.”
On May 31, 1994, the MDEP issued a discharge license to McCain Foods, Inc. in Easton that permitted the firm to dispose of secondary treated process and sanitary waste waters associated with their processing facility via a land-surface waste water disposal (spray irrigation) system consisting of a lagoon with a holding capacity of 509 million gallons, and seven spray sites encompassing 907 acres.
On Oct. 9, 1998 (unbeknownst to me), MDEP issued a Site Location of Development Order for the construction activities associated with a plant expansion in Easton. Construction would include a 7-mile (dual) pipeline from the Easton plant to the Aroostook River in Presque Isle. One pipe could deliver up to 2 million gallons of potable water per day from McCain’s supply wells on the Reach Road; a second (18-inch) pipe would bring a similar volume of wastewater back from McCain’s treatment facility — to be received by the river.
On April 3, 1999, McCain Foods, Inc. applied for a “modified” waste discharge license, for which no public informational meeting was required. Such meetings are required only for major discharges that are “new.” The EPA in Boston had determined (memo, Nov. 9, 1998) the pipeline was simply an “extension” of some pipe in Easton, so the discharge license was only being modified. The license application was routinely processed by MDEP in Augusta and approved July 22, 1999.
Also in 1999, MDEP again attempted to collect baseline water quality data on the Aroostook but was obstructed — just as in 1987 — by high summer flows. The MDEP survey plan was re-slated for 2000, but summer flows were excessively high that year too!
“We have been trying to reconstruct a DO model for the Aroostook for several years but have been thwarted by either high flows or some ‘crisis’ projects that came along,” said MDEP’s David L. Courtemanch in Augusta (email, Nov. 22, 2000).
On Oct. 19, 2000 (not long after learning of the pipeline from my uncle in Presque Isle), I sent a complaint to MDEP Commissioner Martha Kirkpatrick in Augusta. I declared that as the downstream abutter, “I did not receive a notice [by certified mail] from McCain Foods, Inc. regarding the intent to make application in early 1999.” This faulty public noticing had denied me the opportunity to review and comment on the subsequent draft discharge license!
On Nov. 28, 2000, MDEP sent a reply, signed by Nick Archer, regional director in Presque Isle. His letter said, in part, “Information from the City of Presque Isle’s tax maps that exists in the application record locates the pipeline right of way across Lot 85, with the diffuser located on that lot’s side of the thread of the Aroostook River. With this understanding, you were determined not to be an abutter of the line extension project, as defined in our Rules Concerning the Processing of Applications, 06-096 CMR 2.1(A). Our review of the diffuser location as a result of your inquiry has now shown that the right-of-way in fact crosses lot 122, which does abutt your property (Lot 133).
As a result of this review and determination, we have asked McCain Foods, Inc. and its consultants to place your name, at the California address above, on its project notification list of abutters for the anticipated expansion of its Easton facility and any other future licensing activities that require notice to abutters.”
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 twelfth installment of his series on the history of the Aroostook River.