GREENVILLE — Maine school departments have been cutting programs, eliminating positions, and delaying the purchase of new textbooks for years in the face of shrinking budgets.

At the same time, many school departments across the state have expended a steady stream of dollars to help correct a pollution problem they helped create about 25 years ago.

These schools join many government agencies and private businesses in Maine that collectively have spent $18 million trying to clean up contamination at the former McKin Co. site in Gray, where they shipped their waste oil and spent solvents three decades ago.

The amount spent on cleanup by the more than 100 schools, government agencies and private industries from hospitals to oil companies is significant.

For instance, for sending some soil contaminated from a leaky oil tank, SAD 48 in Newport has spent $12,192 since 1992. The Greenville School System, which contributed residue left from cleaning oil tanks, has paid $20,000 for the cleanup. The University of Maine has been assessed $54,530.

As of the latest billing, the city of Lewiston had spent about $17,000; Lewiston School Department, $22,000; Texaco, $2.9 million; Georgia-Pacific Corp., $500,000; Millinocket School System, $32,000; Maine National Guard $69,000. Very few schools, towns, cities and private industries that had liquid wastes were spared from the contamination problem. About 200 towns and-or schools that sent small amounts of material to the McKin site paid a flat, one-time assessment. About 120 others have kept paying.

The former McKin Co., which many were led to believe was a licensed waste collection, transfer and disposal facility at the time, operated in a former sand and gravel pit. About 100,000 to 200,000 gallons of waste materials were accepted each year at the facility from 1972 to 1977. These materials, from all types of public and private facilities throughout the state and the Northeast, were placed in storage tanks and an asphalt-lined lagoon. During this period, the McKin site was owned and operated by Richard Dingwell.

Rebecca Hewett, Department of Environmental Protection project coordinator of the McKin cleanup, said the site was never a licensed facility. She said a license was granted for the use of an incinerator at the site, but that none was issued for disposal of liquid wastes.

Still, the DEP suggested the McKin landfill routinely to those who called for locations to dispose of their liquid wastes, according to attorney James Katsiaficas of Portland, who represents 14 of the school districts that have spent money on the cleanup.

Thousands of gallons of solvents deposited on the property were said to have leaked from the lagoon or were spilled or discharged onto the ground during the operation, according to Hewett. Chemical concentrations of chlorinated cleaning agents were evident in the discolored water of private wells near the site and in the Royal River, she said. Maine health officials closed the site in 1978 when neighbors experienced illnesses such as rashes. No scientific link with the contamination was ever established.

In 1983, the McKin site was placed on the federal National Priorities List and a remedial action plan was developed to address the soil and ground-water contamination. Around that time the Environmental Protection Agency notified users of the facility that they were liable for past and future costs of cleaning up the site. An early buyout option presented to all of the users called for paying a percentage of the estimated total cost of the cleanup plus a 50 percent premium on what they initially were charged. Some towns with less significant liabilities took this option.

The U.S. EPA ordered the extraction of the contaminated ground water for five years beginning in 1991, believing it might be effective in solving the problem. That’s when the schools and other parties began paying.

Feeling a moral obligation, the schools, government agencies and private industries paid for the removal of barrels of liquids that were buried and some contaminated soil at the site. A new source of water was provided to remaining residents in the area. For five years, they have funded the treatment of remaining ground water in the area.

But after learning that $5.7 million was spent for a “pump and treat” process that yielded only 26 gallons of the remaining contamination, the schools, government agencies and private users believe enough is enough.

The DEP and EPA have permitted a temporary shutdown in the pump-and-treat process so the parties involved can gauge its effectiveness. Reports are expected to be presented in the spring of 1997.

Attorney Katsiaficas, whose clients include the Greenville School System and two private parties, said his clients believe that good science and objective data demonstrate that the McKin site no longer poses a reasonable threat to human health and the environment.

Katsiaficas says his clients believe they have paid enough and that it is time for the DEP, “which permitted and even directed” people to bring hazardous substances to this site, to declare that an end has been reached, even if it is politically unpopular. While the current contamination of chlorinated cleaning agents may exceed the federal standards, it is within OSHA standards, he said.

“The question is do we continue with pumping and treating, which we know doesn’t give us much at all, or do we just say, `Look, nature is just going to have to take care of itself on this one,”‘ Katsiaficas said.

Katsiaficas said there is some new, unproven technology that may cut the amount of contamination into the Royal River, but it wouldn’t be significant and it would cost about $50 million. “Do we spend $50 million going after the last 1,500 gallons ?” he asked. Instead, he suggested his clients and other users could spend $2 million to $3 million to rezone the area, fence off and monitor the site.

Superintendent Gilbert Reynolds of the Greenville School System said that about every 18 months, his school committee pays about $1,500 for the McKin cleanup. The school’s contribution to the site was the residue from oil tank cleaning. The Greenville schools have faced major cuts and reductions in programming and have delayed some maintenance work for lack of funds.

Katsiaficas asked why school districts such as Greenville’s, government agencies, the Department of Transportation and private industries, should have to pay more money for something that isn’t now considered a threat to human health.

“This money would be better spent for textbooks,” he said.