CARIBOU – Criminal charges could be in the offing if Maine Department of Environmental Protection officials can identify who left two barrels of waste oil and another substance along a rural road.

Caribou Public Works Department workers found the two barrels Friday morning. The two 55-gallon drums, one made of steel and the other a plastic drum, were found lying on their side off Doyle Road along the snowbank.

“It looks like someone just kicked them off the back of a truck,” Carl Allen, a DEP oil and hazardous materials specialist, said Friday afternoon. “If found, the person who left the barrels there could be criminally liable.”

Allen, who works in the Presque Isle office of the DEP, said one drum seems to be waste oil. He was unsure about what was in the second drum, but he said it could be paint thinner, a hazardous waste material.

The DEP official said leakage from the two drums, amounting to about a pint, was minimal. He said the drums could have been ripped open by a snowplow if they had not been found Friday.

“That could have been a serious situation,” Allen said.

The drums were found about 1,000 feet from the intersection with Route 1.

Allen said the two drums were taken to the Presque Isle office of the DEP. The substances will be tested and disposed of properly.

“We have no idea who did this at this point,” Allen said. “There were not enough markings on the drums to make any determination.

“We would certainly attempt to go criminal with charges from this situation,” he said. “The dumping of paint thinner makes this criminal disposal of hazardous waste.”

Because of the proximity of the drums to U.S. Route 1, Allen hopes someone may have seen the incident when it occurred. Anyone with information can call the DEP at Presque Isle, 764-0477, or the Maine State Police at Houlton, 532-2261.