March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Study on condition of St. George River starts

WARREN — A $19,000 study of the St. George River got under way Monday to determine the condition of the river and to learn whether it could accept the increased flow from an expansion of the Supermax prison.

Warren Sanitary District, which is in line to provide the waste water treatment the new prison will need, got the Department of Environmental Protection’s blessing to use a new testing method because another procedure produced flawed results.

Previously, test results showed the plant was exceeding its limitations. But operators of the plant argued that the results were inaccurate because of the method used. A task force that studied lagoon systems concluded that a carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand test was preferred for plants such as Warren’s system, rather than the state-authorized biochemical oxygen demand test.

Michael Barden of DEP’s water resources regulation division said in a May 6 letter that the carbonaceous test is how the state will now measure the plant’s performance. However, until the river study is completed, both tests must be done. The river modeling will provide DEP with related information, Plant Superintendent Ed LaFlamme said Monday. Treatment plants in Augusta and Portland have been authorized to use the carbonaceous test, LaFlamme said.

“We’re collectively working together to model the river,” LaFlamme said Monday, adding that the study got started with a dry run. People from DEP, the Department of Marine Resources, the Warren Sanitary District, the Georges River Tidewater Association and the Thomaston Pollution Control Department were on hand for the first day. Actual testing begins today.

The three days of testing will cost the state $12,929 and Warren Sanitary District, $6,000, LaFlamme said. He said the district agreed to pick up part of the tab to ensure that a complete study is done.

The river will be sampled under varying situations — when the Warren plant is discharging its average 60,000 gallons per day, with no discharging, and discharging at its full design capacity of 151,000 gallons per day, LaFlamme said.

Three teams consisting of DEP staff and sanitary district representatives will sample about a dozen sites from Payson Park off Route 90 in Warren to the open ocean at the mouth of the St. George River.

Some of the sanitary district people will test Payson Park, the falls at Patterson Mill Road, the river near the former Crowe Rope plant, the bridge at Route 131 on the Oyster River, the Bolduc Correctional Facility and Route 1 bridge at the Thomaston-Warren line. The land team will also be on the lookout for pollution from such sources as farms and malfunctioning septic systems, he said.

DEP and other sanitary district people will use boats for the other sites, LaFlamme explained.

The testing will be completed Sept. 19, but results and findings are not expected to be ready until the end of the year.

In an effort to get information to sanitary district users and the public about the plant’s operation, Warren Sanitary District has enlisted a public relations firm, P.A. Strategists of Portland, LaFlamme said.

“The bottom line is: we need to get across to the people we are not harming the environment,” LaFlamme said.


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