Penobscot Nation and towns get mercury pollution settlement funds

Various entities, including the Penobscot Nation and three eastern Maine towns, are set to receive funds through a legal settlement with the onetime owner of an Orrington chemical plant over mercury it dumped into the Penobscot River between 1967 and 2000.

Those funds, which will help the groups to perform watershed restoration and improvement projects, are part of a much larger settlement that Mallinckrodt U.S. LLC, one of the former owners of the former HoltraChem Manufacturing plant, reached in 2021 . It will pay at least $187 million as part of the settlement

While much of that funding will go to remediating the mercury contamination, $20 million of it has been reserved for projects in communities affected by the pollution, according to the Maine People’s Alliance, which joined the Natural Resources Defense Council in suing Mallinckrodt over the contamination.

Among the first round of recipients is the Penobscot Nation, which will spend the funds on improving water quality and ecosystems in its namesake river, improving the understanding of mercury and other toxins in wild foods, and organizing a conference on the watershed’s quality.

The municipal recipients include the towns of Frankfort, which will improve fish passage at a local dam; Penobscot, which will restore a section of marsh and creek; and Orrington, for a recreational boat launch on the river.

The other groups awarded funds are Ducks Unlimited, Inc. for a pilot project involving sediment placement; Coastal Mountains Land Trust for a conservation project at Marsh Stream; and Great Pond Mountain Conservation Trust, for the development of a preserve on Verona Island.