CALAIS – The plant supervisor accused of filing false reports of tests he performed at the sewage treatment plant pleaded no contest Tuesday in 4th District Court.

Brian Clark, 42, was charged last year with intentionally filing the false monthly reports with the Department of Environmental Protection. The reports indicated that he had performed the required daily tests on wastewater discharged into the St. Croix River from the treatment plant.

Clark was sentenced to 21 days in jail, with all suspended, and placed on probation for one year.

He was ordered to complete 100 hours of community service, and as part of the plea agreement, he forfeited his wastewater treatment plant operator’s license. Another condition of his probation was that he no longer work for a wastewater treatment plant.

“He may not take any employment which would result in him submitting any data to the Department of Environmental Protection,” said his attorney, John Mitchell of Calais.

The former sewage treatment plant supervisor could have been fined up to $10,000 and sentenced to up to six months in jail.

Last year, Clark, was placed on administrative leave with pay immediately after the charge was filed against him. He later returned to work.

After Clark was charged, area residents expressed concern about the effect of his alleged actions on the river, but DEP officials last year said that although tests on the wastewater were not performed as required, the effect on the river was not an issue.

According to the criminal complaint on file at 4th District Court in Calais, Clark made false statements in reports submitted to the DEP from Sept. 3, 1997, to April 7, 2000. The tests were required under terms of Calais’ state license.

The complaint said Clark “knowingly prepared, signed and filed monthly monitoring reports with the DEP showing results for settleable solids tests required five times per week by the town of Calais’ waste discharge license, which tests he knew had not been performed.”

Mitchell said his client conceded that a “reasonable fact finder, be it the judge or jury, could find that he submitted reports that were not done in accordance with the state’s approved testing method.”

But, Mitchell said, the water quality of the river was never in jeopardy.

“The fact of the matter is he did do a test, albeit an unapproved test, and he submitted that. So it’s not as if he was submitting reports to the state based on nothing. Reports were submitted based upon his testing using his own method rather than the approved method the state had designed for that purpose,” Mitchell said.

He said use of the correct test did not change the result. “Doing the correct test never revealed that there were more solids in the wastewater,” he said.

Employed at the sewage treatment plant since 1989, Clark was responsible for filing the reports with the state. He also came to DEP’s attention in 1998 when the city was fined $1,500 for failure to file state reports in a timely fashion.

City Manager Nicholas Mull confirmed last week that Clark is no longer a city employee.

He said the city had met with environmental consultant John Fancy of Appleton to discuss operation of its wastewater treatment plant.

State law requires municipalities to have a licensed wastewater treatment operator. He said Fancy would serve as the temporary operator until the city makes some decisions about the wastewater treatment plant.

Mull said he and Eastport City Manager George “Bud” Finch had discussed the possibility of sharing a licensed wastewater treatment plant operator. But he said the Eastport employee is not licensed to operate a plant as large as the Calais facility.

The city manager said he would explore the possibility of consolidating the treatment plant with another city department. He said several city employees had expressed interest in taking the state wastewater treatment operator’s test.