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May 14, 2012

GAC Chemical Corp's alum waste still eroding into Stockton Harbor clamflat.

 On May 6, 2012 three Friends of Penobscot Bay, later joined by a fourth, core sampled Stockton Harbor's intertidal flats near the GAC Chemical facility..Photo essay HERE
One inch pvc pipe was hammered to twelve inches into the mud and the captured material 
pressed out of the pipe and photographed. Coring was primarily along the edge of the 
mudflat closest to the facility, below a shorebank waste material erosion site.

RESULTS Cores showed a significant amount of alum tainted mud at the edge of the flat 
closest to GAC Chemical's eroding bluff with normally colored brown mud to the south 
along the shore towards the Sears Island causeway. One probe struck apparent buried 
tarpaper or other yielding yet impervious debris.

SUGGESTED ACTIONS 

* The slumping eroding waste slope need to be re-vegetated, and otherwise sealed off 
from the water. Offer to assist with volunteer labor if needed. (Though, it being  acidic toxic
 waste, they probably will use professionals in chemsuits). 



* Map the extent of the their alum waste plume moving glacier-like through the harbor's
 intertidal mud. 


* Start removing some of the brick and ceramic debris strewn all over the beach and flats 
below their facility, again offering volunteers. GAC employees could join us in on the shore 
(Because there's probably so much hard trash buried in the mud  will keep "mud heaving"
 ever more bricks and pipe pieces up to the surface 


* Clarify the state of the outfall 002 liming process. Meet, and/or showing interest in doing 
an erosion control action or beach cleanup, we will praise them and announce it to the 
media.  If they get the eroding bluff dealt with, (the low-hanging fruit) we'll give GAC an 
award for caring about its community and environment, and then promptly push them into the
 intertidal mudflats' alum plume and ceramic trash problem.


IF NO REPLY OR BRUSHOFF ...
bring some media to the waste site(s) and to some picketers at the GAC entry on Route 1, 
and illustrate the reasons for our demand that the company act.


* File complaint with DEP and the US EPA. and start THOSE turgid wheels turning.


*. But first give GAC the chance to save face and do the right thing. They ARE an i
mportant part of the community - frequent donator to community causes large and small,
 and employer of 60 people -according to their literature. We should celebrate their positive
impacts to the community and its citizenry, and just keep pushing them to clean up a little 
more at a time


*  If they just WON'T be a good corporate citizen, why, the jaws of the federal court are 
always yawning wide for a Clean Water Act suit.


*  In the meantime, we'll pay a call on DEP Bangor's land and water qiuality staff to review 
and copy the agency's last few years' files on GAC Chemical.  We'll learn how they are 
really doing, pollution discharge-wise, (are they still liming Outfall 002 to reduce acid 
deposition into the harbor? (something begun in 2004)). 

Find out how GAC's chem  landfills and old waste pits are holding up as the years pass. 
Also take advantage of the trip to look at and copy the discharge monitoring reports of the 
companies across the causeway on Mack Point.

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