Spinning HoltraChem

When former Maine conservation commissioner Richard Barringer agreed to become the environmental overseer for Holtrachem Manufacturing Co. in Orrington last year he promised that he would not “advocate for or against the company. I am simply a public fact-finder, charged with the responsibility to help our environment and our economy.”

Mr. Barringer today releases his first progress report on the chlorine-producing company, and if he is a simple fact-finder, treacle must be a byproduct of the chlorine process because his work is covered with it. The report is a paean to the HoltraChem employees, who are, he says, “hard-working, inventive, committed to doing the right thing and their best, always … .” He likens the company itself to the Little Engine That Could. (An odd analogy for a company that suffered a chlorine leak from a misdirected train car.) And he concludes his report with a flourish that would make any advocate green with envy:

“For, it is an extraordinary effort that is now being carried on by the 68 people at HoltraChem who `think they can’ — and who deserve the greater capital investment, the better coordinated regulatory oversight, and the timely opportunity to restore their good name and become what they aspire to be: a national leader within their industry, and a model among small manufacturers in Maine.”

The people at HotraChem may be as wonderful, successful and hard-working as he says; only it wasn’t for him to say. The public, concerned after a series or leaks and spills of hazardous chemicals at the plant, was told Mr. Barringer was going to be an impartial observer, not a cheerleader.

People living near the troubled plant wanted someone to gather data relevant to its environmental and financial conditions and report it, without spin or gloss. Mr. Barringer reports some very good and encouraging news about the plant, but it is overwhelmed by his personal views. For example, he claims success for an air-monitoring system that was installed two months ago to address problems in warm weather. He says HoltraChem was singled out for new water standards when, in fact, the company was merely brought in line with everyone else. He suggests throughout that the company is making farsighted investments when it is simply meeting the letter of the law. He tells readers that a system that will not be in place for another year “will meet the Legislature’s 2002 standard” for mercury discharge. How could he or anyone know that?

Mr. Barringer’s report does contain a useful section that describes how HoltraChem makes chlorine, caustic soda, hydrochloric acid and a fumigant called chloropicrin and how mercury figures into the process. It gives a concise account of the considerable investments the company has made and will need to make in its aging facility. It offers confidence in HoltraChem’s employees.

But because it does not give an impartial account of conditions at HoltraChem, it is likely to leave public understanding — and confidence — just about where it was a year ago.