A lawsuit against the current and former owners of the HoltraChem Manufacturing facility in Orrington got a big boost last week when a federal judge ruled that the case, which seeks to ensure that the companies clean up mercury contamination in the Penobscot River, could go forward.

The lawsuit takes on more significance because two weeks ago the Maine Department of Environmental Protection rejected the current owner’s plan for securing and cleaning up the now-closed facility.

The plan was rejected because it was lacking in specifics on how contamination would be cleaned up and how such a cleanup would be financed. The company, which used mercury to make chemicals, mainly for paper companies, said it did not have the financial resources to meet state cleanup standards.

U.S. District Judge Gene Carter denied a motion from HoltraChem Manufacturing Co. LLC – the current owner – and Mallinckrodt Inc. – a former owner – to dismiss the case. Carter had asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret Kravchuk to review the case and determine whether it should be dismissed. In November, she recommended that the case go forward because the federal Environmental Protection Agency had failed to address concerns about the plant.

“In my view, this citizen suit is precisely the sort of citizen suit contemplated by Congress, one in which citizens are seeking to enforce environmental laws in circumstances that the relevant administrative agencies have overlooked or are otherwise failing to diligently prosecute,” she wrote in her decision.

In a ruling last Monday, Carter officially accepted Kravchuk’s recommendation without further comment.

The environmental groups that filed the lawsuit heard of Carter’s ruling on Friday.

“I was elated in November and I’m even more elated now,” said Richard Judd, a member of the Maine People’s Alliance who lives less than half a mile downriver from the plant in Orrington. “HoltraChem and Mallinckrodt need to stop delaying and begin cleaning up possibly the worst mercury contamination in the United States.”

Calls to HoltraChem’s president in North Carolina were not returned over the weekend.

The alliance and the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmental group based in New York, filed suit last year to force the companies to clean up mercury contamination in the sediment in the Penobscot River.

EPA agreed to a consent decree with the facility in 1991, requiring the owners to take action to prevent contamination of the plant site and an area of the Penobscot River immediately adjacent to the plant. However, the agency did nothing to address concerns about mercury contamination of the river and its bottom.

The plant was plagued by a string of seven spills and leaks in 13 months in 1997 and 1998. In February 1998, 20,000 gallons of mercury-contaminated brine escaped from the facility, nearly 6,000 gallons of which reached the river. The operator responsible for the spill was fired and the company eventually paid $28,000 in fines to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. The agency had sought $100,000 in fines.

In the past two years, HoltraChem Manufacturing spent $6 million on environmental upgrades at the plant, including the installation of a wastewater treatment facility – and a containment system to control any future spills.

Because the company had just spent so much on improvement, news that the plant was closing shocked even its most outspoken critics. One reason cited for the closing, announced in August, was the increasing costs of complying with environmental regulations.

After manufacturing ceased in September, HoltraChem began packing up the 130 tons of mercury at the Orrington plant. The toxic metal was sold to a chemical wholesaler and much of it was destined to be shipped to India, the largest importer of mercury from the United States.

Upset that the mercury was slated to go a country with lax environmental laws and likely to end up as air pollution blown around the globe and back to Maine, Gov. Angus King asked the U.S. Department of Defense to take the mercury and add it to stockpiles it maintains. The department refused the request because, under law, the it can stockpile only mercury it owns.

Earlier this month, officials with the government of India said they will refuse the shipment, and the country’s dockworkers’ union said its members would refuse to off-load any mercury that arrives at Indian ports.