In the spring of 1971, the plant manager of what today is HoltraChem in Orrington pledged that if the facility were required to meet mercury-discharge laws, it would be forced to close. Now, 27 years and several plant owners later, the Legislature will again consider a bill that applies those same standards to the current owner, HoltraChem Manufacturing Co.

HoltraChem will argue that the proposal does not give it enough time to comply.

The ’71 debate came after a civil injunction from the Department of Justice that ordered IMC Chlor-Alkali, the plant’s first owners, to stop dumping mercury in the Penobscot River. The threat behind the injunction eventually forced the company to reduce its discharge from 2.6 pounds of mercury a day to several ounces a day.

The plant’s current owner doesn’t dump anywhere near the old mercury levels, but HoltraChem is still by far the largest mercury polluter in the state and it still does not meet the ’71 Clean Water laws. LD 2269, sponsored by Sen. Richard Ruhlin of Brewer, would bring it into compliance, slowly, while also reducing the allowable levels of air pollution to 50 pounds per year by 2004. The bill also requires manufacturers that use at least 1,000 pounds of mercury annually, which includes HoltraChem, to cut their use by 30 percent by 2006. The bill is fair and generous. It gives HoltraChem’s owners eight years to meet requirements that everyone else had to meet a generation ago.

That’s an idea that may not be fully understood. It could be tempting for some legislators to view the bill as punishment for the multitude of spins that HoltraChem President Bruce Davis has put on company mistakes. Just the other day, for instance, Mr. Davis complained that the Department of Environmental Protection got it wrong when it estimated that a HoltraChem employee took 20 minutes to react to its latest spill of mercury-contaminated brine, on Feb. 20.

OK, he’s right on this one. The company’s own report says the employee heard the overflow alarm at 5:34 a.m.; the valve was closed at 6:16 a.m.; and the overflow stopped at 6:25 a.m. He’s right, it was longer than 20 minutes, but does anyone feel better about this?

Rather than get caught in public-relations doublespeak over how badly the company violated which environmental law, legislators should see the bill as the natural progression of bringing the company in line with other industries. And the bill is not a job killer. It demands that companies follow the law or stop using toxics that foul the environment for everyone. If HoltraChem is careful, responsible and invests in its facility, workers should still have jobs there well into the future.

Owners come and go at the plant in Orrington; the people who live along the Penobscot, the wildlife and the river itself do not. Twenty-seven years ago, the plant’s owners complained that they couldn’t meet environmental laws for mercury. It has had a quarter-century of exemptions, and the result is a record number of spills and leaks. This time the Legislature should grant it no special favors.