Rather than slow down a study of mercury contamination in the Penobscot River, the company ordered five years ago to do this work should ensure that the examination is done as thoroughly and expeditiously as possible so that work can begin on cleaning up the mercury before it further fouls the waterway.

In 2002, a federal judge ordered Mallinckrodt Inc. to study the extent of mercury pollution in the Penobscot River. The company would have to clean up the contamination, if warranted by the study’s findings. The St. Louis-based pharmaceutical company owned the HoltraChem plant in Orrington from 1967 to 1982. The plant produced chlorine and other chemicals using mercury. Mercury-contaminated soil has been removed from the long-closed facility on the banks of the river.

In 2000, the Maine People’s Alliance and the Natural Resources Defense Council sued Mallinckrodt for failing to clean up mercury pollution in the river. The company, the only former owner of HoltraChem that is still in existence, has long argued that the groups have failed to prove that anyone has been harmed by mercury in the Penobscot.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected this view last year. “The plaintiffs established the potential risk from mercury is serious and likely to be present here and now. In turn, these findings support a conclusion that, as the district court held, there may be an imminent and substantial endangerment to the lower Penobscot River,” the court wrote.

Still, the company again raised this argument when it recently asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the case.

While Mallinckrodt has objected to doing the study, its design – especially whether it should stretch to the mouth of the Penobscot River and into Penobscot Bay – and its leader, the work is finally under way. Field work began a year ago with many sample sites selected and preliminary sediment samples collected and tested. Work this summer is to focus mainly on collecting sediment samples in the river and bay to trace mercury contamination down river from Orrington, according to a study plan approved by the court this week.

A detailed study plan approved by U.S. District Judge Gene Carter laid out a four-year timetable. Without delays, the study would be completed in 2010, a decade after the lawsuit was filed. If it takes as long for cleanup work, two decades could pass before this “imminent and substantial endangerment” is removed from this river. The longer the mercury is in the river, the more it can spread through ecosystems stretching into Penobscot Bay.

Expediently completing the study and beginning cleanup could reduce the spread of damage and lessen the scope of cleanup efforts.