2001-02: Flagship years on the Aroostook River

In a certified letter dated March 8, 2001, a McCain Foods, Inc. consultant sent me a “Dear [downstream] Abutter” letter indicating, in part, the intent to file an application for a “Waste Discharge Permit amendment on or about March 12, 2001.”
On March 23, 2001, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP) received the application from McCain Foods, Inc. to modify/renew the firm’s wastewater discharge license to accommodate a planned expansion. The application proposed to increase the maximum wastewater flow limit to the Aroostook River from 2.5 million gallons per day (MGD) to 4.0 MGD. A discharge of 4 million gallons of wastewater per day is equivalent to about five miles of bumper-to-bumper 4,000 gallon “water” trucks waiting to discharge into the river each day!
McCain Foods, Inc. consultants also requested an increase in the monthly average (seasonal) mass limit for total phosphorus from 91 to 211 lbs/day.
On March 28, 2001, The Star-Herald published my letter entitled “More information needed on McCain plan to discharge into river” in which I said “I strongly feel waste permit decisions should be delayed until MDEP finishes the job of assessing the Aroostook River’s water quality that the agency started in 1987 and has yet to finish.”
On July 4, 2001, The Star-Herald contained the article “Study to check river quality – MDEP, industry, and municipalities join effort in Aroostook River basin.” Managing Editor Paul Gough noted that “weather and the lowest flow of the rivers are factors that matter for quality-control reasons.”
In the summer of 2001, Aroostook County experienced a flash drought — which to me was a godsend. After a one-inch rain event on July 17th, significant rainfall ceased.
By Aug. 3rd, the USGS web-based gage at Washburn read a (rock-bottom) 350 cubic feet per second (cfs), and was dropping. This was below the critical 390 cfs specified by MDEP in its study plan as the threshold before conducting the two intensive sets of three-day samplings.
On Aug. 10th, the flow had dipped to 191 cfs, so the decision was made to assemble survey crews from Augusta and Presque Isle for the week of Aug. 14-16. This data collection was completed on Aug 16th, as the river fell to 137 cfs. The river was now so low the USGS had to rush a crew to The County to make sure their agency’s gauges (including the one at Washburn) were adequately calibrated.
On Friday Aug. 24th, the river had dropped to 122 cfs, and the survey crews were recalled for the week of Aug. 28-30. Still no significant rainfall.
On Aug. 30, 2001, under threat of thunderstorms, the MDEP completed data collection to facilitate the most comprehensive water quality analysis in the Aroostook River’s history! Late that afternoon, Nick Archer, MDEP regional director in Presque Isle, e-mailed me the message “done!” It rained .54 inches the next day.
On June 13, 2002, MDEP issued a Final Permit/License for McCain Foods, Inc. The MDEP responsibly capped discharge of total phosphorus at the previous license limit of 91 pounds per day — undoubtedly based on analysis of the Aroostook River data collected the previous summer.
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 thirteenth installment of his series on the history of the Aroostook River.