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The old tymers tell me that in the 70's and 80's the river was pretty foul.
I spent a lot of time at the river during that time. Raw sewerage floated by on a regular basis. We didn't fish in the river or dip a toe in. Now, I'd occasionally eat a fish from the Penobscot. With chickens raised on a manure bed in a windowless barn, cattle on a manured food lot being fed a partially genetically engineered, unnatural diet to fatten them before slaughter, chemicals sprayed on crops, and PFAS in the soil and water, etc. we pick and choose our poisons.
I live along the Penobscot River, North of Bangor [though interestingly well within the Southern Half of Maine]
The trees and river do look pristine. Eagles are over head, moose are often visible, etc.
The old tymers tell me that in the 70's and 80's the river was pretty foul.
Many of our neighbors and friends are Penobscot tribe members, they have been fighting the state for decades to clean the river.
The river looks clean, and I cannot smell anything wrong. But I know some of the people who work for the Tribe's Environmental Protection department, they test the water and tissue samples from fish and frogs living in the water. The pollutants are slowly working their way out of the river. But that effort is not done yet. The State works hard to fight all efforts to clean the river.
Our tax money at work.
Leachate from the Juniper Ridge Landfill is leaking into the River. We were very fortunate to have been able to stop the N.J. Municipal Waste folks from trying to build a Municipal Waste incinerator here in my township. Or else that would be leaking into the river by now, also. Last month the state passed a new law to halt out-of-state solid waste from being trucked into Maine for incineration and burial. There is a huge quantity of Municipal Waste generated by Mass and Quebec, and a lot of money to be made by anyone willing to dispose of that garbage.
For what it's worth, the Mafia was (and maybe still is) heavily involved in the business of waste disposal, including hazardous waste disposal. And apparently, being the Mafia, they often improperly and clandestinely disposed of hazardous waste - that makes them much bigger profits... and the mob has a legitimate-sounding front for these businesses, so it's not obvious to service users that they are dealing with the mob. I have at least read anyway that one practice was to drive a liquid waste truck onto a rural road and then just open a tap slightly to allow the hazardous waste to slowly trickle out along the roadside while they drove it slowly along the roadway. One of the theories for how large quantities of PCBs got into Squam Lake, NH and a number of feeder streams, is Mafia malfeasance with hazardous waste, perhaps like that.
Then there are of course leather tanneries, which dumped large amounts of toxic chemicals, including lots of toxic heavy metals into New England waterways in past decades. Mid-western coal-fired powerplants with huge smokestacks sent large amounts of not only sulfur and phosphorous compounds that caused acid rain, but also toxic heavy metals like mercury, lead, and cadmium high into the air where prevailing winds carried them east, with fallout landing all the way to the Atlantic ocean.
These are just some of the sources of pollutants that may affect New England waterways.
Sorry to read this about your waters. I'm from the other side, Northwest-Washington, Idaho, Montana. Our waters look pristine also, but when you know the history of all the mining and heavy metals coming down the rivers into lakes it becomes disheartening.
I started looking into coming your way with hopes of better waters. Appears we've almost polluted the entire country.
Those that know don't eat any freshwater fish in the N.W. either.
I grew up farming in a region with serious drought issues. It seems that as the decades go by the recurring droughts get worse.
I felt that Maine holds serious promise because it has never had a severe drought. Sure rainfall amounts fluctuate from year to year, but there is always enough water for the trees to grow. There may be statistical wild points of years with less rainfall, and some office worker may label those years with the term 'drought'. But brown dead grass by June every year? Not in Maine.
I figure that no matter how badly previous generations polluted the rivers, eventually it will flush itself clean. More water flows down the rivers every year, gradually carrying the pollution away.
The township where I have settled is mostly peat bog. One thing about peat bogs is they can not exist without lots of water. Over half of this nation is dealing with water shortages and it gets worse every year. Cities grow larger and they suck their aquifers lower and lower every year. But in this area we have nearly too much water. It stands with no where to run and spagnum moss grows in it.
I much prefer to live in an area with too much water, instead of any of the states where they do not have enough water.
That's interesting and a positive way to look at it, as far as eventually flushing the pollution away. I haven't made it to Maine yet, but hope to visit someday.
Also, can't agree with you more about wanting to live where there may be too much water rather than not enough.
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I have a theory on mercury and heavy metals. They are leached into the watersheds from the acidic nature of soils. And it has always been that way. Now probably the combination of water/rain with atmospheric sulfurs and nitrogens contributed to increase this process.
Here in east Tx we have the same fish consumption warnings due to mercury. It does apply only to top end predator fish as they stockpile the mercury in their tissue due to their prey. That means in freshwater here bass. Strangely crappie are not included in our advisory but are in Maine warnings.
Acidity is contributed to highly by conifer trees but deciduous also contribute. According to this link Maine can be ground zero due to natural environment:
"In addition to receiving more rainfall than other areas of the country, these regions have more tree cover as well. Fallen leaves and pine needles slowly decay and contribute to the acidic level of the soil. The rocks underlying the soil also impact a soil’s pH, as can be seen in these regions of the country as well, where granite rock contributes to the acidic character of the soil. "
How did our predecessors ever survive?
dioxins are a direct pollutant of paper mills. We have a tremendous timber industry where I live here, larger than anything I witnessed in Maine by far, and have had big issues here especially in the 70's to early 90's. That is under control here now thanks to new processes, less demand for white paper, and pollution controls.
PCB's degrade significantly and are or should be disappearing worldwide. Half life of the chlorine molecules range from 5-83 days. In one study they degraded to the point that Great Lakes trout levels diminished 80% from 1977 (when PCB;s were banned) to 1996.
Other than too much mercury consumption I'd not hesitate to each Maine's gamefish. Especially from more isolated ponds and headstream flowing waters. Bon appetit'.
The Penobscot River has cleaned itself up. There are no paper mills operating above Old Town and I believe that mill is running on recycled fiber. I have not heard that the pulp mill is running. I know seven men who come to Maine from Mississippi for 2 weeks every summer just to fish the Penobscot. It's awesome fishing and there are many who no longer fish it because of old propaganda about various chemicals. One chemical on the environmentalists lists is a chemical that occurs when trees rot. It is a completely natural thing and accounts for the tea colored water in many streams that run into the Penobscot and all larger Maine rivers.
These are called tannins. Tannin - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Tannin
Tannins (or tannoids) are a class of astringent, polyphenolic biomolecules that bind to and precipitate proteins and various other organic compounds ...
So, there you have it. When the Lincoln mill was running, the river was cleaner below the mill than above the mill.
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