CORINNA – Pesticide contamination from the now defunct Eastland Woolen Mill has been found in bass in the east branch of the Sebasticook River, the river that feeds Newport’s Sebasticook Lake, according to federal officials.

The contamination, mostly the pesticide Dieldrin, has been found in fish south of Corinna’s Eastland Woolen Mill Superfund site to about one mile north of Newport’s town line. Preliminary testing has indicated that an area the size of 10 football fields south of Corinna’s downtown along the riverbed is showing contamination.

“The contamination does not reach the lake in Newport,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency project manager Ed Hathaway said Thursday. “The concentration that we have found is not a threat to people,” he said. “People can wade in it, walk in it. It is not a concern to hunters or fishermen.”

It is, however, moving up the food chain, Hathaway said, by contaminating the bugs on the bottom of the riverbed, which are eaten by bass. The bass can then make their way into Sebasticook Lake, he confirmed.

Hathaway said Dieldrin, a carcinogen, was used at Eastland to preserve the wool and protect it from insect damage.

Since cancer-causing chlorobenzene contamination was discovered under the former mill, the EPA’s efforts have focused on the mill site and the businesses and river surrounding it. The past three years of work have resulted in the removal of 75,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and every building on Main Street, the rerouting of the East Branch of the Sebasticook River and a new course for Route 7.

At a meeting to be held June 5 at the Corinna School, EPA officials will update residents of both Corinna and Newport on the current status of the Corinna Superfund cleanup and the downstream investigation.

As far as the game fish contamination goes, Hathaway said, “If someone eats a few fish a year, it will be no problem, but we would be concerned if someone consumes large quantities.” Hathaway said information on the contamination has been provided to Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection and further testing of the fish both in and out of the lake is likely. Although fish testing in the area was done in the past by Maine’s DEP, the EPA as part of the Superfund project has done it for the past three years.

The manager said the contamination extends one-half mile from downtown to behind a former dump in Corinna off Route 222 “before the big bend in the road and right below the Corinna Sewage Plant.”

Hathaway said the investigation likely will result in a warning not to consume bass from the area, but the threat of mercury in Maine’s waters is far more serious. “By June 5th, we will have looked aggressively at the fish consumption issue and have the latest information available,” he said.

In addition, Hathaway said he will provide an update on phase one of the Corinna cleanup. There are two years left in that phase and this year will focus on soil treatment. By mid-June, the mountain of contaminated soil stored in downtown Corinna will begin to be treated. The 75,000 cubic yards of soil is three times the amount originally estimated to be removed and treated.

He said the monitoring of Corinna’s groundwater, however, could continue forever. “It could clear itself up in hundreds of years or it may not even be possible to have pure water again,” said Hathaway.

Under the contaminated site is bedrock, he said, which is “like a giant maze of underground tunnels” that allowed the chlorobenzene, which was used in the dyeing process at the woolen mill, to run through it, puddling and contaminating groundwater.

“We have had a very successful early cleanup,” Hathaway said of the first three years of the Superfund project.

Hathaway said the project originally was estimated to have a price tag of $10 million. So far, EPA has spent $28 million and the cleanup could easily top $44 million when all is completed.