The Portland Press Herald / The Maine Sunday Telegram

April 30

Almost time to pay bills for Long Creek's cleanup

Landowners in the affected area must pay part of their first annual installment by May 18.

By Ann S. Kim akim@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

The effort to clean up the Long Creek watershed will soon get a financial infusion.

More than 100 landowners will be involved in reducing runoff of polluted stormwater into the creek, which runs through the Maine Mall area, and its tributaries.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is requiring the landowners to join a collective effort run by the Long Creek Management District or improve their properties on their own.

The landowners in the collective must pay 15 percent of their first annual assessments by May 18. The annual fee is $3,000 per acre of impervious surface, such as rooftops, roads and parking lots. Landowners who have already installed detention and treatment systems would receive credits and pay less into the fund.

"The whole idea is, by joining together collectively, you can do more," said Don Witherill, director of the watershed management division of the state Department of Environmental Protection, which will issue permits for the effort. "Not a parcel-by-parcel approach, but zeroing in on the parts of the plan that are the most important." It's not yet clear how many of the landowners will opt to join the management district. The maximum assessment for all of the landowners for the first year will be $1.6 million, said Tamara Lee Pinard, executive director of the management district. Individual landowners will pay $3,000 to $180,000, she said.

The largest affected landowner is General Growth Properties, owner of the Maine Mall. It owns about 50 acres of impervious area. MaineToday Media Inc., publisher of the Portland Press Herald and the Maine Sunday Telegram, owns about 7 acres of impervious surface in the mall area, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The 10-year effort is projected to cost $14 million. The intervention by the EPA, which came after legal pressure from the Conservation Law Foundation, is the second time the agency has forced the cleanup of urban runoff pollution under the federal Clean Water Act.

The management district was formed through an agreement among South Portland, Portland, Westbrook and Scarborough. The Cumberland County Soil and Water Conservation District, for which Lee Pinard is stormwater program manager, provides the staff.

Although the landowners haven't yet paid their assessments, work has started around the mall, thanks to a zero-interest loan through the federal stimulus package.

The $2.1 million loan, which also forgives 27.7 percent of the principal, will cover projects on Darling and Philbrook avenues and part of a project at Mall Plaza on Maine Mall Road.

The incoming assessments will go toward the rest of the Mall Plaza project. That includes finishing a large sand filter behind Dick's Sporting Goods and the Internal Revenue Service office, and adding other filtering treatments and underground storage tanks that release water slowly.

The assessments could also pay for engineering work for the upper watershed area in Westbrook. Trees, bushes and ground cover will be planted at the Col. Westbrook Executive Park to work as filters.

About three-quarters of the roughly 120 properties involved in the cleanup have some stormwater infrastructure, said Will Savage, an engineer and project manager with Portland-based Acorn Engineering, which evaluated the properties.

But only a couple of sites met the latest water quality standards, Savage said. The new standards, which took effect in late 2005, reflect a shift from quantity to quality of runoff, he said.

Staff Writer Ann S. Kim can be contacted at 791-6383 or at:

akim@pressherald.com