by Susan Young, Bangor Daily News

Members of the Penobscot Alliance for Mercury Elimination briefly blocked the entrance to the plant to protest what they called the state government's "irresponsibility" in allowing HoltraChem to pollute the river with mercury, a neurotoxin. They also were upset that 80 tons of mercury soon may leave the now-shuttered plant.

Late last year, protesters gathered at the plant, which used mercury to make chlorine and other chemicals, to express their outrage about the substance being shipped to India. That shipment of 20 tons was turned around in Egypt and returned to the United States.

They still are angry that no plan for getting rid of the mercury permanently, rather than shipping it to less-developed countries with fewer environmental laws, has been devised.

"The governor and DEP [Department of Environmental Protection] have knowingly endangered Maine citizens and the environment by their negligent and irresponsible response to the mercury poisoning of the Penobscot River," said Jim Freeman of Verona, a spokesman for the group.

"Collecting mercury thermometers door-to-door in Freeport is simply an inadequate response to the looming disaster in Brewer stemming from years of state inaction against the mercury polluter HoltraChem," he said.

Freeport recently passed a ban on the sale of mercury-containing thermometers. Legislators soon will debate a similar statewide ban.

Freeman said the mercury should remain at the Orrington plant to give lawmakers time to develop a plan for permanently storing it.

Steve Silva, the director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Maine program, said he understood the protesters' concerns.

"Their concerns are legitimate," said Silva, who was at the plant Monday afternoon. "It would be a good idea if we could take mercury out of commerce."

Silva said all the attention paid to the HoltraChem mercury could be a good thing because Congress soon will debate a measure to ban mercury in many products. The proposed law, sponsored by U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, also calls upon the federal government to develop a program to retire the toxic metal rather than have it resold in the world marketplace.

The remaining mercury at the HoltraChem plant is "being handled within the limits of the law right now. But with the heightened awareness, maybe the laws could be improved," Silva said.

Currently, 51 tons of mercury are sitting in containers awaiting shipment.

The mercury is stored in 1-metric-ton containers, each of which is about 2 feet high and 2 feet in diameter. The containers, sitting in groups of 17, are on the concrete floor surrounded by plastic orange riprap. Because mercury is so heavy, a truck can carry only 17 containers at a time.

The remaining mercury, about 30 tons, is stored in a long cylinder that was made by HoltraChem employees as a temporary storage container. It is sitting on metal sawhorses awaiting transfer to small shipping containers.

A shipment of mercury is scheduled to leave the plant by the end of the month, plant manager Dave Baillargeon said Monday. He said the company had not set a date by which all the mercury would leave the plant.

The March shipment is slated to go to Bethlehem Apparatus in Pennsylvania, the world's largest mercury recycling company.

State officials remain concerned that HoltraChem, which has said it is running short of money, may cease to exist by the end of the year. Officials from the DEP, Maine Attorney General's Office and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency currently are in negotiations with one of the plant's former owners to get it to pay for cleaning up the site. If that fails, the HoltraChem plant could become a Superfund site.

State and federal officials expressed optimism Monday that the former owner, Mallinckrodt Inc. would step up to the plate and foot the cleanup bill.