Eastport in hot water over DEP violations $10,000 fine for wastewater treatment woes

EASTPORT – The state Department of Environmental Protection has proposed a $10,000 fine against the city, citing serious problems with its wastewater treatment facilities and operation.

In the tentative administrative consent agreement and enforcement order, the city was able to convince the state to reduce the fine from its original $19,284.

The next step is for the city to sign the agreement and send the check. The matter then goes before the Board of Environmental Protection for approval.

Eastport is not alone in its wastewater treatment problems. DEP recently proposed a $55,000 fine against Calais, saying that the quality of operation, maintenance and monitoring of its wastewater treatment system was the worst the state agency had seen in years.

Eastport has two waste discharge licenses, one for its Quoddy treatment facility west of the city and the other for the main treatment facility.

“On March 7, 2002, department staff conducted a site visit to both facilities,” the DEP order says. “During this and subsequent site visits, several problems with the operation of the wastewater treatment facility and the conduct of laboratory analyses were identified by the staff,” the board order says.

The violations found at the main facility, included a hole in the suction line to the rotometer, a device that pumps sodium hypochlorite into the treatment effluent. As a result the system was not properly chlorinating the effluent.

At the Quoddy facility, DEP staff discovered that the seven-day flow chart recorder paper had not been changed and the drum that contained sodium hypochlorite was empty.

In the consent agreement penalty rationale, DEP officials said that while they were updating the list of violations they had learned of additional problems. DEP “learned that the operator had not been doing all of the required monitoring since the waste discharge license was replaced with two separate licenses last August. This failure on the part of the operator is a poor reflection on the city and the efforts by the city manager to comply,” the penalty rationale said.

In his letter to the DEP dated July 25, City Manager George “Bud” Finch said he believed the proposed consent agreement was fair and equitable.

“The city at no time knowingly or intentionally acted to violate rules, regulations and licensing issues. The city willingly implemented remediation steps to become in compliance with the rules, regulations and licensing issues,” he said.

Finch said the $10,000 fine represents 5 percent of the wastewater treatment’s operating budget and 50 percent of the cash fund balance.