Portrait of a polluter

ORRINGTON - Last summer, a state environmental inspector at the HoltraChem Manufacturing Co. plant dropped his safety goggles in a brook and made the mistake of reaching barehanded into the water for them.

When he withdrew his hand, he felt the slippery sensation of dissolving skin, as the natural oils on his palm were attacked by chemicals.

The brook was carrying hazardous waste - mercury and a powerful corrosive chemical - directly into the Penobscot River.

At right: The cell room at the HoltraChem Manufacturing plant in Orrington. The plant uses mercury as an electrical conductor in closed tanks, called ''cells,'' where a salt solution is exposed to electrical current to make chlorine gas and sodium hydroxide. HoltraChem's customers include paper mills and companies that make swimming pool chemicals.

As far back as the 1970s, scientists were discovering elevated levels of mercury in fish from wilderness lakes around the country. But it wasn't until 1990, when Congress finally agreed to a federal study of mercury, that government began to pay serious attention to the problem.

Maine regulators, especially, are now caught in the middle.

How can they protect HoltraChem's neighbors and the public at large, yet still be friendly to businesses - something Gov. Angus King and his administration have made a top priority?

And how tough should Maine be on local mercury polluters when coal-burning, Midwestern power plants also significantly worsen the state's problem?

For 30 years, HoltraChem or its predecessors in Orrington have been using mercury and other chemicals to make chlorine gas and caustic soda for the paper industry and other industrial customers. In the process, the Penobscot River, the surrounding air and the 250-acre plant site have become a dumping ground.

State and federal documents show:

• Tons of sludge contaminated with mercury have been buried in five unlined landfills. Several of them now are leaking into the river.
• Hazardous waste has been spilled at the plant repeatedly over the years, polluting the soil, surface and groundwater.
• Thousands of pounds of mercury have drifted into the air from the aging, poorly maintained production building.
• Small amounts of mercury are legally discharged into the river every day under a state law that says old emissions sources need not meet all the new pollution standards that exist.

DEP staffers even urge visitors to throw away their clothes and shoes after they leave.

''This is the only company that I work with that I lose sleep over,'' said Barbara Parker, a DEP hazardous waste specialist. She was there when a inspection found heavy chemical contamination in the brook last summer.

The HoltraChem plant is Maine's largest source of mercury, a naturally occurring element that is turning into an environmental menace. Spewed from power plants and other factories, then carried by the wind, mercury has settled in lakes, ponds and rivers across the country.

In water, bacteria convert the mercury to methylmercury, a more dangerous form of the toxic metal that concentrates in fish. Maine and 34 other states have been forced to warn their residents not to eat too much fish.

Consuming fish increases the risk of exposure to high levels of methylmercury, a potent toxin that attacks the central nervous system and other organs and harms the development of unborn children.

Some wildlife biologists believe methylmercury levels in Maine fish right now are high enough to interfere with reproduction and disease-fighting abilities of birds like the eagle and loon, Maine's symbol of conservation.

The DEP began paying close attention to HoltraChem roughly a year ago, during the administration of Gov. Angus King. In July the department proposed an $891,000 fine against the company and ordered it to stop violating hazardous waste laws.

But the most serious problem remains unsolved. Under its state and federal licenses, the plant is still allowed to release significant quantities of mercury into the air and river - without violating the law.

Holtrachem has turned down a DEP request to convert the plant to a mercury-free process now widely used in its industry. The company says it can't justify the expense.

Bruce D. Davis, HoltraChem's president, said converting the plant would cost at least $45 million, an investment that would take decades to pay off. He said HoltraChem can and will slash its mercury emissions by improving operations and investing in new equipment for the existing process.

''That is what we are geared to do,'' said Davis, 69, a lifelong chemical industry executive, ''and that is what we are going after.''

The DEP could force the plant to close, but that would put people out of work, damage the Bangor-area economy and raise production costs for Maine's paper industry, a major HoltraChem customer.

At right:Harold Webb of Bucksport works at the ''cell console'' at the HoltraChem plant in Orrington. The console operator controls the gap between the anodes, the positively charged electrodes, and the cathodes, the negatively charged electrodes. The high cost of electricity has made it tough for the plant to turn a profit.

With global emissions of the toxic metal on the rise, there may be little room for lengthy delays.

Worldwide, the rate at which mercury is raining into lakes and rivers is increasing by 1 percent a year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Biologists have found that mercury concentrations in the feathers of loons are increasing by 4 percent to 10 percent a year. At those rates, the amount of mercury in the feathers of loons could double in 12 years or less, perhaps much less.

In 35 states from Maine to California, contamination in some freshwater fish - especially perch, bass, pickerel and sunfish - has forced officials to post public health advisories. Those advisories warn people to limit their fish consumption to avoid mercury poisoning.

And just last summer, the mercury threat was extended to the ends of the Earth when Canadian scientists discovered that the toxic metal was raining above the Arctic Circle every spring.

At the plant

Built in 1967, the plant uses mercury as an electrical conductor in closed tanks, called ''cells,'' where a salt solution is exposed to a powerful electrical current to make chlorine gas and sodium hydroxide.

HoltraChem can make up to 80,000 tons of chlorine and 88,000 tons of sodium hydroxide a year. Its major customers include paper mills and companies that make swimming pool chemicals and polyvinyl chloride pipe, which is used for plumbing.

At left: Gordon Engstrom of Dover-Foxcroft, a HoltraChem shift supervisor, demonstrates how to use a mercury vapor analyzer in the plant's cell room. The device detects the level of mercury vapor in the air. Company officials wouldn't allow Engstrom to perform a live demonstration while reporters were present.

HoltraChem paid a $13 million electric bill to Bangor Hydroelectric Co. in 1996, about 60 percent of HoltraChem's total production costs. Bangor Hydro relies heavily on HoltraChem as a customer.

The relatively high cost of electricity in Maine has made it tough for the chemical plant to turn a profit for its owners.

The previous owner, the Hanlin Group, filed for protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in 1991. HoltraChem, a Massachusetts firm with sales that make it the 12th-largest chemical distributor in the nation, bought the plant in 1994.

It acquired a stable, accessible market in Maine's paper industry. But it also got a collection of aging buildings and machinery that had been neglected, except for emergency repairs, since 1989.

Inheriting 'a mess'

''As a result, we inherited a mess,'' said Davis, the HoltraChem president.

The company spent money to restore some of the lost capacity. After profits started flowing again, it put $3 million into new equipment, including $1.4 million to buy corrosion-resistant tanks and parts of a new wastewater treatment system. Both moves would improve the plant's environmental performance.

On a tour of the plant, Davis points proudly to the improvements.

The sludge processing operation has been upgraded and moved into a new building, at a cost of $600,000, to keep wastewater from escaping. An old salt elevator that seemed ready to collapse onto workers has been replaced.

But the plant, during a tour in June, still looked to be in poor condition overall.

Rust ate away at unpainted girders, exposed metal gratings and the bases of outdoor chemical storage tanks 40 feet in diameter.

Fluids dripped onto the ground from leaky valves and pipe joints.

Pieces of corrugated sheet metal hung askew or were missing altogether from the main production building, allowing drafts to blow through freely.

Under HoltraChem's ownership, the plant has been plagued by a series of hazardous waste spills, including four this year.

One of the spills, involving the loss of up to 270,000 gallons of waste from an underground tank, is likely responsible for the high alkaline and mercury content of the stream tested by DEP inspectors.

Davis said the company is still working to correct problems at the plant, but can't afford to do everything at once.

''We are doing what we can right now,'' he said. ''If I had $10 million, I could do one hell of a lot in this plant environmentally in short order. I just don't have that kind of money.''

'Win-win' enforcement

It's an approach that reflects the regulatory philosophy of the 1990s: Limit strict environmental enforcement and promote so-called ''win-win'' relationships that turn government regulators and businesses into teammates.

At right: The HoltraChem Manufacturing plant in Orrington, constructed in 1967, sits in close proximity to the Penobscot River.

Between 1991 and 1996, overall enforcement cases brought by the department for environmental violations dropped from 239 to 50.

The previous owner of the HoltraChem plant, LCP Chemicals, was fined $80,000 in two enforcement cases in 1989 and 1990, for discharging polluted wastewater into the river and handling hazardous wastes improperly.

But those fines only scratch the surface of the plant's environmental history.

So many problems have occurred at the site since the mid-1980s that the DEP's active files on the plant fill an 8-foot bookshelf.

uequal;7800,6. In the DEP archives sit another 20 cartons of files documenting environmental issues during earlier years of the plant's 30-year history.

After three decades of caution, environmental regulators began scrutinizing the plant more closely a year ago.

Inspectors cataloged a list of hazardous waste violations in a visit to the plant in September 1996. DEP Commissioner Edward O. Sullivan visited the plant to discuss operations with company officials.

Many DEP staff members have visited the site over the months to inspect conditions.

Researchers at the DEP have been collecting other data to learn as much as possible about the plant's emissions and their effects off the site - on nearby residents, on the Penobscot River and on other bodies of water miles away.

A study by the DEP identified the lakes downwind of the plant that were most likely to have fish with elevated levels of mercury.

They include Swetts Pond, Fields Pond, Brewer Lake, Mud Pond, Long Pond, Thurston Pond, Williams Pond and Phillips Lake. Biologists have caught fish in several of those lakes and are awaiting mercury test results.

In July, the DEP took by far the most aggressive action HoltraChem has faced in Maine: The state cited the company for numerous violations and proposed an $891,000 fine, one of the largest ever sought by the DEP. HoltraChem was ordered to comply with Maine environmental laws.

Among the violations cited:

• Four hazardous waste spills this year, which released at least 270,000 gallons of wastewater contaminated with mercury into the ground or river.
• Fourteen violations of hazardous waste management regulations, including keeping leaking containers in the plant.
• Failing to report spills immediately, as required by law.

''If an event is over by the time we get there, we learn less, we respond less effectively and we know less about how to prevent it,'' he said.

At right: Bruce Davis, the president of HoltraChem, says converting the plant to a mercury-free process would cost at least $45 million. He says HoltraChem will reduce its mercury emissions by improving operations and investing in new equipment for the existing process.

Between 1970 and 1983, sludge containing an estimated 13 tons of mercury was buried on the site in five landfills with no liners. Officials have only been monitoring leakage from the landfills for a few years.

Terry Haines, a zoologist at the University of Maine, said recent testing of Penobscot River sediment found high levels of mercury below the plant.

In a cove near the plant's discharge pipe, mercury levels were 1,094 parts per billion. That mercury level is more than seven times higher than the 147 parts per billion of mercury found in sediments 10 miles upriver, in Eddington.

''I can't say that mercury came from HoltraChem,'' Haines said. ''But we know (HoltraChem) is a mercury source.''

How the mercury released from the HoltraChem plant has affected life in the river or other water bodies in Maine is still an unanswered question.

But there's mounting evidence that, on a larger scale, mercury pollution is a serious and growing environmental threat.

Every lake, pond, river and stream in Maine is covered by a mercury warning that tells people to limit the amount of fish they eat, or in some cases, to eat no freshwater fish at all.

Wildlife biologists have found critical levels of mercury in the blood of 70 percent of the male loons captured in New England, possibly reducing the reproductive rate of the species and damaging the loons' immune systems.

In Maine, particularly on lakes, bald eagles have a reproductive rate only 15 percent to 40 percent of the national average. Tests have shown high levels of mercury and other toxic chemicals in their eggs.

Much of the mercury descending on Maine comes from incinerators, coal-fired power plants and other sources in the Northeast, the Midwest and Canada.

But HoltraChem also makes a contribution. Between 1987 and 1994, it legally released 6,955 pounds of mercury into the air, mostly in the form of evaporation from the production building.

Testing wells

No contamination has been found in the wells, probably because groundwater flows go to the river rather than the neighborhood, according to an initial report prepared for the Environmental Protection Agency.

But state regulators want to make sure there are no pathways that could channel pollution to the wells through the underlying bedrock.

Richard Judd, a resident of Ferry Road, said the 10 to 15 families in his neighborhood are concerned about the pollution threat.

The company recently sent a newsletter to residents reviewing its environmental progress at the plant and urging people to call with questions. Judd said the newsletter did not ease his family's worries.

''We are wondering why they're so concerned all of a sudden,'' Judd said.

Davis, the HoltraChem president, said the company is simply trying to improve communications with local residents.

In 1994, right after HoltraChem bought the plant, a DEP staff member wrote to the company and urged it to consider other technologies that would end the repeated discharges of mercury into the environment.

Of the 41 plants in the United States that make chlorine gas, only 14 still use the mercury cell technology in place at HoltraChem. Other plants use newer technology and need no mercury.

In a visit to the plant last year, Sullivan, the DEP commissioner, renewed the request that HoltraChem stop using the mercury technology.

Davis, the company president, said no.

He said the company has reduced atmospheric mercury emissions to 350 pounds a year, down from 580 pounds annually in 1993.

Mercury emissions to the river, limited by license to about 16 pounds a year, are projected to drop when new equipment is installed and the company negotiates a new permit with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the DEP.

Davis said it would cost $45 million to $60 million to convert the plant to a mercury-free system, and the expense wasn't justified.

''Would you spend $60 million to get rid of 300 pounds of mercury?'' he asked.

Under present federal regulations, the company isn't required to stop using mercury. A plant of its size and type can legally discharge more than 1,000 pounds of mercury into the air every year.

And its wastewater-discharge license, also covered by federal regulations, permits the plant to release 16 pounds of mercury into the river a year.

Sullivan said he will do whatever is necessary to make HoltraChem run the plant safely and stop spilling wastes. But the DEP currently has no legal authority to force HoltraChem to stop using mercury, he said.

Sullivan or the governor could ask the Legislature to enact a new law that would force HoltraChem to end its use of mercury.

But Sullivan said the DEP really doesn't know enough yet about HoltraChem's environmental impact to justify more pressure.

''Right now, we couldn't make the scientific argument for how much they should be doing,'' Sullivan said.

The DEP could be on stronger scientific ground, however, if the data it is now gathering on the plant shows a broad environmental impact.

Complicating the matter, though, is HoltraChem's economic clout.

The company employs 69 people for an annual payroll of $3 million, including benefits. It is a major taxpayer in Orrington, providing $300,000 a year to support schools and other services.

HoltraChem is by far the largest customer of Bangor Hydro, a financially troubled utility that can ill afford to lose business.

The chlorine plant is twice as large as Bangor Hydro's second-largest customer and picks up much of the utility's fixed costs of producing power.

If HoltraChem were to close, homeowners and other Bangor Hydro customers probably would see their electric bills climb by several percent, said Carroll Lee, the utility's chief executive officer.

Maine's paper industry also relies on HoltraChem.

Caustic soda made at the plant dissolves the natural adhesives in wood pulp and is used widely by Maine paper mills. The mills also buy chlorine from HoltraChem, although those purchases are declining.

Davis, the HoltraChem president, said Maine paper companies would have to spend an extra $10 million a year on freight if HoltraChem closed.

''That is important because you know the governor wanted to support the paper industry, which is one of the biggest industries left in the state, and so this is an important aspect of that,'' Davis said.

King said he has discussed HoltraChem with Sullivan.

''My advice was the same as it always is,'' the governor said. ''I told him to do the right thing.

''Basically, I told him that mercury is a problem, and if this is a major source, then we've got to be sure the law's enforced and the public is protected,'' King added. ''I think we've moved pretty aggressively.''

Sullivan said economic considerations will not come into play as he evaluates whether the company can run the plant safely under existing laws.

But if it wants to set tougher rules for mercury, he said, the DEP probably would have to take jobs and other economic impacts into account.

Maine is not alone on that balance beam. Coming to grips with the mercury threat will force other local and state governments to weigh the benefit of industrial jobs against a safe, healthy environment.

The potential for costly mercury controls also extends beyond private chemical manufacturers.

The plants that burn our trash, including some owned by government, are a major source of mercury pollution. They are looking at an estimated $56 million price tag nationwide for installing controls to reduce mercury emissions.

Regional Waste Systems, a publicly owned plant that burns trash for 31 southern Maine towns, plans to pass its mercury-control costs - possibly $1 million - on to local communities.

Nationally, the electric utility industry also may be confronted by enormous mercury-control costs, assuming that comprehensive mercury recommendations written by the EPA in 1995 - but stifled by federal politics - one day are released and acted upon.

Coal-fired power plants are the last major unregulated source of mercury emissions into the air. Fitting them with pollution controls commonly used to curb mercury emissions in Europe may cost that industry $2.9 billion.

High as those costs are, they may be unavoidable.

A new EPA study of mercury found that atmospheric deposits of the toxic metal are increasing around the world at the rate of 1 percent a year.

That means that already high mercury levels in fish and birds would increase even more - perhaps by 50 percent - when our children become grandparents.

By then, humans may be closer to showing signs of mercury poisoning.

Some new cases of mercury contamination are showing up in children from Indian tribes in South America. They are being exposed to mercury from vast gold mining operations in the Amazon River region, where the toxic metal is used to strip the ore of impurities.

On the other side of the planet, China is building coal-fired power plants at a rapid clip. Even in the United States, coal consumption is expected to rise through the year 2020, according to the federal government.

HoltraChem's efforts

Davis, the company president, said HoltraChem needs to put the mercury issue into perspective with a public education campaign.

In his view, Maine people, especially those who live and work near the plant in Orrington, probably don't realize how far HoltraChem has come.

''One of the problems we've found is that, unfortunately, we are tarred by the reputation of our predecessor, and it is a little bit like the old prostitute that has gone straight,'' he said. ''She has a tough time when she goes out on the street convincing her old clients that she suddenly has virtue.''

To communicate its virtue, HoltraChem hired a public relations consultant from Portland in June to help develop a strategy for getting the company's word out to Maine residents.

At the request of the DEP, the company also sent a letter notifying nearby residents that a fence would be going up on the site.

The DEP fears children or others will wander onto the property where waste has been spilled, in particular the stream where DEP staff members encountered high levels of chemical contamination in June.

HoltraChem's letter downplayed environmental concerns.

''We have been taking samples of the stream daily for the past several months,'' the letter said, ''and that testing shows that the water and sediment in the stream poses no threat to individuals.''

Two weeks after the letter was written, HoltraChem had another spill. About 200 gallons of wastewater, containing small amounts of mercury, overflowed from an outdoor collection tank when a pump broke down.

HoltraChem notified the DEP quickly, but there was no reason for emergency response crews to rush to Orrington from their office in Bangor.

The waste had already washed across a paved area and soaked into the earth.