DEP frustrated over ‘Spitball Mountain’

BANGOR – Despite repeated requests from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Maine Central Railroad’s parent company has yet to finish cleaning up what a Bangor official dubbed “Spitball Mountain.”

Sunday marked the three month anniversary of a train derailment that sent two railroad cars containing tissue paper and pulp tumbling into the Penobscot River, near the intersection of State Street and Hogan Road.

A third car, which also held paper, came to rest on the riverbank.

While the train cars and some of the more easily reached paper were picked up, much of the paper escaped and can be seen clinging to the shoreline at least as far down the river as Orrington.

“While this isn’t a toxic material, it’s a nuisance and an eyesore,” Ed Logue, DEP regional manager for eastern Maine, said Wednesday. “It’s really litter in the water and litter on the land.”

The mess has been a source of frustration for his staff and has generated complaints from officials and residents of Bangor and Brewer.

“We’re on it,” Logue said, adding that state environmental regulators have been calling the railroad daily to press for the cleanup.

He said the DEP was “very close” to taking enforcement action but hoped to get the railroad to clean up the waste voluntarily to avoid a protracted legal battle.

Logue said he was assured the cleanup would take place last week so that the paper waste would be gone in time for Tuesday’s Independence Day holiday, which drew thousands to the Bangor and Brewer shores of the Penobscot.

But last week came and went without any action, and this week is half-over, Logue noted.

“We’ve had something firm at least two times,” he said, but to date there has been no movement.

“We’ve given them a timeline or we’re going to take further action,” Logue said.

While no firm deadline has been set, Logue said, “we basically told them we need to know by the end of this week” what will be done and when.

The state official said efforts to elicit action from railroad staff in central Maine have been fruitless.

“I’m now dealing with the corporate office out of [North] Billerica, [Mass.],” Logue said.

Attempts to confirm cleanup plans last week and this week were unsuccessful.

Telephone calls to the North Billerica, Mass., headquarters of Pan Am Railways, Maine Central Railroad’s parent company, were not returned.

On Wednesday, Logue acknowledged he was getting frustrated with the company’s lack of action.

“They’ve given us every excuse in the book” for not finishing the job, Logue said.

“Now they’re claiming they have a market for it, but it’s hard to believe because it’s full of dirt and roots,” he said.