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With the beach closures in the Gulf of Maine last summer, just… How Clean Is Portland

Harbor?By Lance Tapley 32 portland monthly magazine December 2006 December 2006 portland monthly magazine 33 n City B eat

t’s an old story. People have been talking about clean- ing up Portland Harbor for years,” begins a Maine Sunday Telegram feature story in 1968, I written by a fresh-out-of-college waterfront reporter by the name of Lance Tapley. The story refers to “scores” of oil spills in 1967 and to an article written in 1929– found in the newspaper’s library–that describes an oil slick polluting the harbor. The 1968 story relates efforts by the Coast Guard and a recently founded group called the Portland Harbor Pollution Abatement Committee to move beyond just talking Artwork in this story is available as posters from the California Coastal Commission, a about cleaning up the harbor. public education program in San Francisco A Portland sewer treatment system, whose mission is to protect, conserve, the story notes, was “a long way off.” In restore, and enhance environmental and human-based resources 1968, all the city’s human wastes poured of the California coast and ocean for unchecked into the harbor, Back Cove, and environmentally sustainable and prudent use by current and future generations. several streams. It was established by voter initiative Skip forward almost 40 years to the in 1972 and later made permanent by present: The city’s plant on Munjoy Hill the Legislature through adoption of the California Coastal Act of 1976. The Coastal has been treating sewage since 1978, as has Act includes specific policies that address South Portland’s Waterman Drive plant. issues such as shoreline public access and recreation, lower cost visitor accommoda- Despite 400-plus tanker visits to the port tions, terrestrial and marine habitat protec- each year, oil spills are now rare. Even a tion, visual resources, landform alteration, huge one in 1996, when the Julie N tore agricultural lands, commercial fisheries, industrial uses, water quality, offshore into the old Million Dollar Bridge, was oil and gas development, transportation, contained and cleaned up well enough (at development design, power plants, ports, a cost of $48 million) so that no ecological and public works. For more information, visit www.coastal.ca.gov

california coastal commission disaster occurred. Continued on page 74

34 portland monthly magazine December 2006 December 2006 portland monthly magazine 35 n City B eat

Harbor, continued from page 35 investigate the local waters in his 26-foot Bay Keeper for the Friends of Casco Bay. Truth at Low Tide Not that there aren’t other problems Gone are most of the waterfront’s remaining. Studies have shown how much ancient, rotting wooden pilings that the harbor’s mud bottom is composed of a churned debris into the harbor with “noxious mix,” in Payne’s words, of met- every tide. Volunteer cleanup crews als like lead and arsenic as well as cancer- L a u r a F u l l e r now sweep over Portland’s and South causing hydrocarbons, the legacy of 150 Portland’s shores every September. Most years of unregulated dumping of indus- Glass Studio summer days, Portland’s East End Beach trial wastes from paint factories, tanneries, is free enough from bacteria to be swim- and foundries. Experts think the only thing 129 Congress Street Portland, Maine 04101 (207) 650-6968 www.fullerglass.com mable. The oxygen level of harbor water that can be done with these sediments is to is high enough to support abundant hope that they will be eventually well cov- marine life. ered over with silt from the Fore River. Visiting cruise ships–some with pas- But the pipes that carry overflow sew- sengers and crew totaling thousands–have age and the various poisons of civilization very recently been forbidden to discharge into the harbor remain the number-one any waste water in the harbor or bay. And environmentalist concern. watching the waters carefully are two pro- “It’s 60 to 70 percent of where all water fessional groups, the Friends of Casco Bay pollution comes from,” Payne says. and the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership–in The seven staffers of his 17-year-old addition to a squadron of local, state, and group work to get this and other antipollu- federal environmental officials. tion messages across to the public (www. But the cleanup of Portland Harbor cascobay.org), with a $625,000 budget and is not yet accomplished. Most notewor- scores of volunteers who test water qual- thy, raw human waste still pours into the ity. One of its educational projects, called harbor whenever the volume of water in BayScaping, aims to lessen the use of lawn a rainstorm causes Portland’s and South chemicals that find their way into the RETRO ICE Portland’s sewage to back up in the sewer surrounding waters. In another project, The pure cool white of diamonds melts pipes from the treatment plants. Of the a Friends’ boat pumps out to a tank for 43 combined sewer and storm-water out- safe removal the wastes from recreational into the pure cool white of platinum; falls that existed in Portland in 1991, only craft–100,000 gallons in the past 10 years. melts into summer’s warmth of yellow gold. 11 have been eliminated to date by the In 1998, the group rescued 33,000 lobsters Little waves of gold gather, replacement of single pipes by pairs of from the inner harbor, which was being swirling at the base of diamonds. pipes–one for sewage headed for treat- dredged, paying lobstermen to trap and Diamond light streams from center to side. ment and one for runoff water. then release them out in the bay. Diamond light shimmers icy blue-white… The other major environmentalist orga- quite simply… a delight. The Secret Storm nization concerned with the port is the Considerable progress, though, has been Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, a quasi- made. In 1996, about two billion gallons governmental group largely funded by the Retro Ice is a refinement of a classic of untreated sewage went into the harbor federal Environmental Protection Agency Cross design from the 50’s and 60’s. Your grandmother probably had one. and nearby waters from Portland, South (EPA). It is run by a local board and head- Larger round center diamond, eight graduated small round diamonds Portland, Cape Elizabeth, and Westbrook, quartered at the University of Southern Retro Ice is a combination wedding-engagement ring in a low-profile, according to the state Department of Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service in comfortable design. This combination simplifies life. Environmental Protection (DEP). In 2004, Portland. Established in 1990, with a cur- an estimated 600,000,000 gallons over- rent budget of $600,000, it is one of 28 estu- 5/8 carat total weight, 14K yellow gold and platinum flowed–a 70 percent drop. ary projects around the country that carry $2,885.00 But think of swimming in those out the EPA’s major nonregulatory effort 600,000,000 gallons! And as the outfall pipes for cleaner harbors. It is less activist than All platinum $3,685.00 feed water from everyday rain into the har- the Friends, but the Friends is one of the actual size bor and bay, they sweep along pesticides, group’s partners, which also include other herbicides, gasoline, motor oil, pet waste, activist organizations such as Friends of and other toxic effluvia of modern life. the Presumpscot River; local, state, and Cross Jewelers “The major source of pollution of the federal agencies; and businesses like Manufacturing Jewelers Since 1908 harbor has been the same, and it’s storm Portland Yacht Services, which has helped 570 Congress St., Portland, Maine 04101 water runoff,” says the harbor’s chief in fighting invasive marine species.

PM1490 Ctr .40 3B5 S .20 T. 0AX5 ©05 1-800-433-2988 watchdog, Joe Payne, a 58-year-old beard- Karen Young, 38, a toxicologist, is ed biologist whose job as “baykeeper” is to the Estuary Partnership’s director. She 74 portland monthly magazine December 2006 December 2006 portland monthly magazine 75 n City B eat “Belt tied, not buckled. And other In 1998, the Friends Whose Harbor Is things you should Unlike fashion, style is a subtle thing. It’s a certain something that of Casco Bay rescued know about style.” complements a man’s personality 33,000 lobsters from Cleanest? and makes a statement without Industrial waste, toxins, and untreated sewage estimated in harbors, in gallons, per year: being either conspicuous or incon- the inner harbor, which spicuous. It’s about fabric and fit; was being dredged, • Puget Sound (Seattle city limits ties tied properly; trousers that paying lobstermen to only): 964,982 break just across the top of your • Boston Harbor (Boston city limits shoes. And jackets that allow the trap and then release only): 7.8 million right bit of shirt sleeve to show. them out in the bay. • San Francisco Bay (Oakland, San For every man who wants to Francisco city limits only): 96 million achieve it and isn’t quite sure how believes there are other threats to the har- (and most of us aren’t, mind you), • Portland Harbor: 600 million bor–“oil is still a fairly significant risk,” David Wood is here. We know. given how much goes through the port, • New York Harbor (Metro NYC limits much of it for a pipeline to Montreal. But only): 1.04 billion she agrees with Payne that the sewage Figures courtesy Environmental Protection Agency overflow during storms and the normal runoff through the sewers together create And the city gets “not a dime,” he says, the biggest unresolved pollution problem from federal or state agencies for this size- 75 Market St., Portland, ME for Portland Harbor and Casco Bay. Her able effort. 800-403-6653 • davidwood.com group produces “State of the Bay” and The state’s DEP commissioner, David other reports that can be read at www.cas- Littell, says he’s willing to renegotiate the cobayestuary.org. sewer cleanup deal with Portland, “but let’s Purveyors of Style Portland’s mayor, James Cohen, keep good, solid, consistent progress.” describes the city’s remaining “combined Littell bristles a little at Cohen’s sugges- sewer overflows”–CSOs in public works tion that cleaning up the sewer outflows is oriental • contemporary • sisal • buy • sell • appraisals • cleaning • padding lingo–as “one of the larger environmental an unfunded mandate. Calling it this, he challenges.” Cohen, 41, an attorney, has a says, implies the city has the right to pollute. family connection to the port’s cleanup: His Although Cohen has a green reputation mother, Jacki Cohen, is chairwoman of the and has created a “Sustainable Portland” -ONDAYn3ATURDAYAM PM Casco Bay Estuary Partnership’s board. task force that Littell, 39, a Portland resi- The mayor calls the Clean Water dent, sits on, the mayor seems resigned to Act’s commandment to municipali- a long timeline for the remaining sewer ties to clean up their sewer systems “the reconstruction. He doesn’t suggest any largest unfunded federal mandate out massive infusion of city funds. “We are there.” For Portland alone, he estimates, financially struggling,” he says of the city. $75 million still will have to be spent to Littell comments that he sees no reason meet the requirements of an agreement Portland couldn’t put up some city tax the city originally made with the DEP in money to move the process along. the early 1990s, but that has been revised “Government is reactive,” Joe Payne twice since. Expectations now are that the observes, not too optimistically. “It reacts work won’t be finished until around 2018; to citizen pressure.” the city is seeking further revisions to its Nevertheless, “Portland is in better agreement because the feds have a new shape than most of the harbors south of us,” mandate: The city must prevent the most Payne says–not sounding, for a change, like toxic storm water–even after all sewage the critic he is paid to be. “Almost every- has been removed–from flowing untreat- thing is moving in the right direction.” ed to harbor and bay. Forty years after the founding of the Portland Harbor Pollution Abatement NATURALDYED+AZAK Unfunded Mandate? Committee, the harbor has come a long These projects have so far been entirely way in pollution abatement, although it’ll financed by municipal sewer charges. take at least another dozen years to get to a This is the reason city sewer rates are high, really grand environmental destination. Cohen says: “They are double what people So the old story continues, but for a long pay for water.” time now it has been more than talk. n 76 portland monthly magazine December 2006 December 2006 portland monthly magazine 77