PUD, DEP at loggerheads over copper level amounts

PARIS —A $30,000 study has failed to convince state officials that the copper levels discharged by the Paris Utility District (PUD) are safe for the marine life that lives there.

Officials from the Department of Environment Protection (DEP) warned that the district is running out of time to come into compliance.

PUD Manager Steve Arnold said that he stands by the results of the 16-month study, and expects that the federal government will back him up.

PUD, which completed an upgrade about a year ago at a cost of nearly $10 million, has been operating under an expired permit since 2006.

In July 2011, it was expected that it would take only two months to get the PUD license approved, but the issue remains unresolved.

The DEP's Gregg Wood, who has been working with PUD to come to an agreement, said that the burden is on PUD to justify discharging higher amounts of copper into the water.

He said that, while there was no firm deadline, he expected to hear from PUD sometime in the next couple of weeks.

"Doing nothing isn't an option," said Wood.

Arnold said that the state needs to recognize PUD's numbers as valid.

"What we're going to do is reaffirm our position in writing back to the state, based on the science of the study that we've conducted."

Arnold said that the district has already justified the amount of water it discharges with the study, which was conducted by Integral Consulting Company of Portland, at a cost of nearly $30,000.

The study used an evaluation tool called a Biotic Ligand Model (BLM).  Under that model, PUD's copper levels are permissible.

The problem, said the DEP, is that BLM is not currently an accepted model.

Both parties expect that the logjam may be broken by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

PUD officials hope that EPA will approve the BLM method, which would allow for the current discharge level.

Arnold said that it's almost a certainty that EPA will do so.

"It's gone through peer review on their level. It has to be promulgated into a law and that has to happen in Washington D.C.," said Arnold. "Right now, all things look like [BLM] will be kind of a mainstay, with the EPA's blessing."

Arnold said that he expected EPA to approve the new standard in a matter of weeks, or, at most, two months.

"It's not going to be years," he said.

However, Wood said that EPA is not moving quickly enough.

"We have been waiting for EPA to bless the revised model, and they have not done that yet," he said.

The fact that PUD has been operating without a license for five years isn't helping.

"We have conveyed that we can't wait forever for the revision. You're going to have to accept our number, or come up with a new statistical analysis and ... defend that," said Wood.

Arnold said that PUD's agreeing to the lower copper levels is one thing. Actually being able to meet them is another.

"Then essentially we go back into noncompliance, which is not where we want to be," he said.

Breaking ground

Getting DEP to allow a different local standard is unusual, but not unprecedented.

The Woodland Pulp Mill in Baileyville demonstrated that it could discharge aluminum at six times the national standard without impacting the local marine life.

PUD hopes to do something similar. Arnold said that a green light from DEP would cause other facilities statewide to revise their own procedures.

"There are a lot of other facilities sitting in the wings. If we get this, there are other entities that are waiting to move forward with their own processes," said Arnold.

According to Wood, PUD must demonstrate that the local environment of the Little Androscoggin can absorb more copper than the national standard.

"Their approach is, 'even though the standard might apply to the Mississippi River, up here in Maine, it might be a little bit different,'" said Wood.