Dirty water

[The former IP Mill in Lisbon Falls (now Knight-Celotex)]

[Open River on the Androscoggin; Not much recreation going on]

[There are more signs, however that people are using the river, recreationally]

[One of many beautiful open stretches on the river]

The state is at a crucial crossroads, economically. While some in Augusta grasp the gravity of our choice, I’m fearful that far too many are locked into the old mentality that accepts jobs—any jobs—as a panacea for their constituents. In my world (Baumerworld?), politicians care about their communities and in particular, the communities that they represent.

The Verso Corporation is asking that they not be required to meet the higher standards that various advocacy groups and others are asking for. While the scientific data seems to support the need for stricter standards, Verso is taking issue with the science. In a scenario that is all too familiar in Maine and elsewhere, the issue is being played as the environment versus jobs. As the case plays out, politicians are treading carefully, but if history is any indication, these so-called representatives will side with the corporations, rather than the communities that use the river for something other than a pool to dump their waste.

Rather than carrying the water for multinational corporations, water that in Verso’s case, would be significantly more polluted, these “representatives” need to focus on what are Maine’s strengths. We need to move beyond the feudal mentality that has existed for far too long in the Pine Tree state, where we allow the “kings of industry and commerce” to control every damn important decision made. Just take a look at our wage scale, compared to our neighbors to our south and then tell me that business works in the interest of Maine people.

Verso talks a good game when you speak with them. They talk about caring for the community, being a good corporate citizen—all the things that their marketing people script for them to say. Interestingly, many of their managers are “from away” and know very little about the history of Maine—beyond the fact that Mainers still know how to work, by and large and that they have a captive labor market to draw from in the Western Maine locale where their mill sits.

The reality of the paper business is that it is in flux. For all their talk of commitment, before the residents of Androscoggin and Franklin Counties grant Verso carte blanche in what they can dump in the river, let’s keep in mind the history of papermaking in Maine for the past 35 to 40 years. Mills, bought by large multinationals have fared poorly. In town after town across our state, these companies came in, got concessions from municipalities (while trumpeting jobs) and in most cases, rarely lasted for more than a decade before moving operations to a place where they could shave costs (or environmental standards) and left Mainers standing in the unemployment line.

Maybe Verso is an animal of a different stripe, I don’t know. All I know is if it walks like a corporation and talks like a corporation, then in all likelihood, in the end, it will behave like a corporation and protect its bottom line every time.

The Androscoggin, once one of the most polluted rivers nationwide, has gotten better since 1972, when Rumford native, the late Senator Edmund Muskie, was one of the authors of the federal Clean Water Act of 1972. Yet, for all the progress that’s been made from the days when the river, filled with chemical-laced foam, would occasionally catch fire and peel paint of the houses bordering the river in mill towns like Rumford and Jay, the river still does not meet the minimum federal standards, or even the state standards for water quality. In fact, the Androscoggin is still one of the dirtiest rivers in the state, used by the mills along it merely for their own industrial needs. Gulf Island Pond, the 14-mile stretch of slow moving water above Lewiston/Auburn, fails to meet even the state’s lowest water quality standards. According to DEP, there have been no significant improvements in water quality in the last decade in Gulf Island Pond.

So who is responsible for the Androscoggin’s continued pollution issues? According to DEP, it is the paper mills, like NewPage in Rumford, Verso in Jay and other paper producers upriver, which account for 83 percent of the oxygen depleting pollution entering the river and 77 percent of the phosphorus pollution sent to its waters. Phosphorus is a nutrient pollutant that causes algae blooms (green slime on the river) and depletes oxygen in the water.

Rather than merely exploiting a wonderful resource for their own profit and industrial uses, Verso and the other mills along its banks could invest in modern pollution prevention technology that would both lower manufacturing costs and allow them to meet water quality standards, at least so said the McCubbin Report, in the fall of 2003.

The report stated, “There are many technologies and operating practice that have been in use for some time in profitable, operating mills which can potentially be used to reduce the discharges of pollutants that affect the Androscoggin River. These include personnel training, improved process control for phosphorus addition, correction of weaknesses in existing waste treatment systems, recovery of unplanned mill process losses, oxygen delignification and replacement of aeration tanks in the mills’ waste water treatment plants.”

Maine’s rivers have an important role to play in the state’s future economic growth. The city of Lewiston, which borders the Androscoggin, is developing a beautiful riverside gateway complex to the city. Amazingly, there is talk about luxury condominiums being built overlooking Great Falls. On the Auburn side of the river, the Hilton Garden Inn has been built, attracting guests from all over. Nearby is Gritty McDuff’s with an outdoor deck overlooking the river during the warmer months. There is a new river walk and beautiful Railroad Park, providing an important greenway area for Little Canada and that part of town bordering the Androscoggin. The river is a key part of Lewiston’s continued economic growth, so for Verso to use the argument that they should be allowed to continue to dump phosphorous and other chemicals in the river shows an inability, or unwillingness on their part to recognize that the river is a key part of the area’s revitalization and future.

What bothered me the most was Verso’s shameless attempt to use its very own workers to do their bidding, bidding, by the way that will be quickly forgotten as soon as Verso hits economic hard times and has to lay off some of these same workers. Bussing them to Thursday’s hearing, the general tenor of their testimony was that if the more stringent laws are passed, then they’ll be out of a job.

I’m not unsympathetic to their plight. My own father was a paper worker for over 40 years. During that time, I saw him work swing shift, holidays and do pretty much everything his employer asked of him. For his efforts, his employer of 30 years closed its doors, after seeing ownership change hands regularly over his last decade there. He hung on, taking a cut in pay in his mid-50s and limped across the finish line to retirement.

My father was a product of another time, a time when a high school diploma and a will to work, coupled with loyalty served a Maine worker fairly well. Those times have changed and sadly, many of these workers who spoke Thursday, taking their cues from the corporate suite, don’t realize it.

While mills like NewPage in Rumford and Verso in Jay pay well and offer employment opportunities, I’m not convinced they’re here for the long haul. Residents along the Androscoggin’s banks would do well to demand the more stringent regulations. By doing so, they are guaranteeing the long term sustainability of the river, for recreation and the enjoyment of those who are committed to the area for the foreseeable future.

The value of a good plumber

Fewer and fewer young men (and young women) are going into the skilled trades. As our society has grown more technology-oriented, making a living with your hands has fallen into disfavor. Now, working in a climate-controlled environment, even if its in a cubicle, performing the modern-day equivalent of assembly line work, which is basically what today’s information workers are doing, still carries more prestige than an occupation where you might get dirt or grease under your fingernails.

Occupations like electricians, plumbers and other trades, such as heating and ventilation, are finding their workforce aging and today’s high school students set on a four-year degree, in liberal arts, business, or information technology. The orientation for the last 50 years, beginning with the returning GI’s from WWII, has been on obtaining a bachelor’s degree.

While there might have been a time when foregoing four years of earning power made sense, more and more, graduates of liberal arts programs are finding good paying jobs hard to find. In addition, many students are leaving private institutions with crushing levels of debt, resulting from student loans.

So, is a four-year degree necessary? According to Bert Schuster, executive director of National Tooling and Machining Association Training Center in Fremont, “There are people who just have a high school education and are doing very well.” Schuster points out that many machinists find their way into the occupation by going through the association's four-year apprenticeship program.

While many continue to beat the drum that manufacturing is going away, precision manufacturing continues to provide opportunities and great paying jobs for many young people coming out of two-year community college programs, or on-the-job training opportunities, such as apprenticeships. Even in a low-wage state like Maine, a journeyman machinist often earns more on average than a four-year college graduate, with many machinists making more than $55,000 to $60,000.

Machinists make parts that go into virtually any manufactured product—from from car engines to computers, from medical devices to kitchen appliances. States like Maine have many machine shops that manufacture components in such diverse fields as medical equipment, semiconductors, computer peripherals, communications, automotive, consumer durables, and even aerospace.

Which brings me to plumbing. There is nothing worse than needing the services of a plumber and not being able to access one. For someone like me, with very little mechanical acuity, I depend on people like plumbers to maintain my fixtures around my home.

Living outside, I have a well and a well requires a well pump. Over the 20 years that I’ve lived out in the country, my wife and I have experienced our share of issues with our well pump. Due to the iron in our water, periodically, we get a buildup in the pump and we begin having problems with the pump not shutting off. While I know how to manually shut the pump off, it becomes a headache and inevitably, it becomes necessary to place a call to the plumber.

We’ve had several plumbers over the two decades that we’ve lived here and they’ve all been the stereotypical tradesman that many people think of when the discussion turns to manual labor—difficult to schedule, undependable and with a tendency to overcharge and under-deliver.

About three years ago, we found a local gentleman who does plumbing part-time. While this can present challenges, as his business has grown and there are just so many hours in the day, he’s very good at calling us back and giving us a pretty accurate “ballpark” of when he’ll be able to get over. We’ve been fortunate not to have a plumbing emergency, so I don’t know what would happen in that instance. I do know that for routine problems, he’s been great. Professional, personable and surprisingly reasonable, price-wise.

With fewer and fewer people having basic skills to do plumbing, wiring and other basic repairs around the home, the skilled trades will continue to be in great demand.

Portland loves baseball

The Portland Sea Dogs and the City of Portland are looking to extend their current lease at Hadlock Field for another 20 years, which would take it through 2028. I predict this will be a slam dunk, because the city council will basically “rubber stamp” this and will continue to subsidize a private business.

It’s always been interesting to me how often good people suspend logic when it comes to something sacred, like their local professional baseball team.

I wrote about all of this before. In light of the pending vote by the City Council, it's probably worth linking to it again. It continues to amaze me that my well-researched and indepth article is the only one that bothered to look critically at whether the Sea Dogs offered any real benefit for the city.

Not surprisingly, the article in the Press Herald fails to go into any depth in analyzing the issue. In fact, almost all the comments echo support for sticking the local taxpayers with the task of subsidizing a millionaire’s business venture.

Is Maine anti-business?

Maine Speaker of the House, Glenn Cummings (D-Portland), has proposed a bill that would require developers building any retail establishment larger than 75,000 (big box store) square feet to file an impact study in the community where it will be built. The bill stipulates that the cost of the study will be borne by the developer.

According to Cummings, Maine is seeing development taking place at a rate of ¼ acre per hour and he feels that it’s time to take a look at the issue.

“The one thing we have left—now we don’t have PhD's flowing out of our universities; like some states do, we don’t have people building shoes for 49 cents an hour, like Hong Kong, or Romania—the one thing we have left that’s an international niche—it is a place we want to come to.”

Predictably, this rankles those people who feel that progress in Maine consists of a series of parking lots, interconnecting big box stores, like Lowe’s, Target, Home Depot and of course, our friends with the yellow, smiling face. People like the Maine Merchants Association and the Maine Real Estate and Development Association.

Jim McGregor is opposed to the bill and spoke about his concerns.

"Maine Merchant Associtation’s interest in this bill was no doubt peaked by what it feels is a growing and unjust anti-retailing sentiment in the Maine Legislature. And that LD 1810 is yet another example."

Roxane Cole, President of the Maine Real Estate and Development Association stated that she feels that Maine towns are already capable of determining what’s best for them.

Linda Gifford of the Maine Association of Realtors had this to add.

“Are we open for business in Maine, or are we not open for business in Maine? We think this sends another anti-business, don’t come to Maine message that we’re concerned about.”

All three of these opponents of LD 1810, the bill proposed by Cummings, speak from the short-sighted and damaging perspective that Maine’s future economic health is tied to low-wage, sprawl producing development. This kind of thinking has a long history in Maine, going back to the days when lumber barons and others built their empires from Maine’s plentiful swaths of hardwood and other natural resources, harvested by unskilled laborers with strong backs and power provided by Maine’s abundant rivers. You still see vestiges of that model in the large houses built by these industrial barons, in Bangor, Augusta, Hallowell and other places. In fact, most of Maine's rivers, by the late 1960s and early 1970s were choked with the aftermath and refuse of this economic era.

It seems intuitive to me that this bill, dubbed the Informed Growth Act, would provide local towns and municipalities with the kind of information that they really need, in order to assess the true cost to their communities of the arrival of Wal-Mart, Target, or some other retail behemoth—costs associated with traffic flow, the need to beef up police forces, environmental impacts and how it will affect the local economy in general. This is exactly the type of information that helps local residents to be more informed, educated and better able to assess the true costs of “everyday low prices.”

Susan Porter is the owner of Maine Coast Books, in Damariscotta and one of more than 140 small business owners who have stated their support for the bill.

“What does a developer fear from an impact study, if he honestly believes he is creating prosperity?"

I’ll answer Porter’s question by saying that what developers fear is no longer being able to shove their brand of non-sustainable development down the throats of the communities that they run to, pave over, grab their bag of loot, before running to the next open space, where they reenact the same parasitic scenario.

In my opinion, Cumming’s bill isn’t anti-business, unless, of course, your idea of business is doesn't include developing career options that include jobs that pay living wages, support the healthy growth of Maine communities and enable Maine to compete on the global stage. Retail sector jobs provide support for none of these and in fact, is leading Maine down a path to the bottom that perpetuates an economy that leaves us with two kinds of Mainers; the haves (who exploit low-wage workers and benefit from that model) and the have-nots.

I wrote three long posts that are a pretty good starting point for anyone who wants to understand the concerns that Glenn Cummings, Susan Porter and others have with uncontrolled big box development.

In Big-box bait and switch, Part I, which developed after I read Stacey Mitchell’s excellent book, Big Box Swindle, I lay out my own concerns about the preponderance of big box development that stretches up and down our state, like some kind of mange, fouling our pristine countryside and former open spaces.

If you want to have a sense of big box development run amok, drive to our state’s capital, in Augusta and in particular, the area across from the Augusta Civic Center. That area continues to metastasize, like a cancer. Apparently, Augusta wants more of this, as the west side of town, behind the Senator Inn, where you exit I-95 to access Western Avenue, is now being dug up and paved over, under the guise of economic development and with a new set of big boxes, anchored by a Target store.

I hope Cumming’s bill passes, because I think it’s exactly what Maine needs. The opponents calling it anti-business show their business orientation to be firmly in the camp that says the function of business is to always put profits ahead of people. In my book that’s not healthy for our communities and shows an anti-progressive business sentiment, oriented only towards maximizing profit.

Maine can do much better and ought to, particularly in light of growing concerns about global warming and climate change. Our state ought to take the lead in sustainable development and promote that to the rest of the U.S.

[The majority of information for this post is based upon a feature story that was done by Murray Carpenter, during Friday’s (April 27th) Maine Things Considered Program, on MPNN radio.]

The writing fraternity grows smaller

For the second time this month, the writing community lost another giant. David Halberstam, one of journalism’s real treasures, was killed in a car crash in San Francisco, on Monday. He was 73.

Halberstam was a master at capturing the subtle nuances of whatever subject he chose to write about—sports, politics, war, the civil rights movement—setting him apart from the rest of his breed.

While not exclusively a sports guy, he was able to use athletics as a vehicle to get at the larger issues of the time he wrote about. Reading Halberstam helped ground us in the historical realities of the period he covered in each one of his 20 books. Rather than give his readers pap and nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, Halberstam the journalist, dug into his subjects and provided context.

As others have noted, Halberstam recognized that history wasn’t formed in a vacuum. He was a “social historian,” placing his stories into the milieu of the period covered by whatever book he was writing at the time. His accounts of the ballplayers, soldiers and civil rights pioneers he wrote about were grounded in the day-to-day realities of the period portrayed. One of the best compliments that anyone could utter about Halberstam, in my opinion, is that he wrote “grass-roots”history; history of the people, for the people.

In October 1964, Halberstam used the burgeoning civil rights movement to contrast the two participants of that year’s World Series. On one hand, you had the New York Yankees, a team steeped in legend and mythology, with the likes of Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Elston Howard and Roger Maris and the upstart St.Louis Cardinals, a team with up and coming stars like Lou Brock, Curt Flood, the brooding Bob Gibson and a young Tim McCarver (long before he became a boorish baseball announcer).

Like any Halberstam treatment, the season-long buildup to the World Series is filtered through the lens of society's pressing issues, this time, the fury of racial upheaval, as the old ways of segregation are about to change. Baseball, like any sport, can be a mirror, reflecting the mores and conventions of society. During this period, blacks and other non-whites were forced the indignity of living in substandard, segregated accommodations during spring training. While management wanted to ignore this and wish it away, players like Gibson and Flood, proud men, aware of who they were and what their skills represented to owners, were beginning to recognize and openly complain about the arrangements. Gibson, who later would become baseball’s most dominating pitcher, whose 1968 season would force baseball to lower the mound, was a young, untamed flamethrower in 1964. As his stock rose, Gibson would become more outspoken. Halberstam shows us the young Gibson, just finding his way. Flood would later challenge baseball’s antitrust clause, ultimately shortening his career. In 1964, we see the rage and fury that would later find its outlet in taking on baseball’s hallowed method of indentured servitude.

I used Halberstam’s The Fifties to help me understand the decade prior to my own birth, in 1962, in authenticating When Towns Had Teams. Because I was writing about a period of time that I only knew about from the stories of parents, grandparents and others, I wanted to have a sense of what this postwar era was really about. Halberstam helped guide me and give my own writing credibility.

In The Best and the Brightest, the hubris of Kennedy’s Camelot is on glorious display, as America’s defining conflict, the Vietnam War, is deconstructed in 816 glorious pages, Halberstam-style.

He clearly shows what happens when leaders—“the best and the brightest”—blinded by insularity, privilege and Ivy League educations, carelessly lead us into a conflict that they deem vital, but ultimately becomes a quagmire and a national disgrace. Vietnam is a shining example of what happens when bad decisions, dishonesty and sheer stupidity lead America into its most costly war at the time, in lives, civil unrest and political fallout, leading to a cynicism that the U.S. has yet to recover from. There are those who argue that we lost our soul in Vietnam and we’ll never recover it.

The great writers of history lend immediacy to the people, places and predilections that find their way into their prose. Halberstam certainly belongs in that category.

As men like Halberstam pass on, members of America’s “greatest generation,” I wonder what will become of the country and its culture that they’ve left us in charge of. I think a case can be made that while Halberstam’s American compadres were far from perfect, they might very well be the last great collective grouping that we’ll know. Part of this comes from the historical maelstrom that they were born into and the events that shaped them; the aftermath of the first World War and the Great Depression, WWII, the Cold War and then, Vietnam.

Unlike the boomers, who came to question and then, turn it over to the marketers and our generation that decided to wallow in materialism, inflicting it on our own children, who struggle to decide whether they want to live in this world, or some make-believe alter-universe built on the deity of technology, the "greatest generation" faced issues of life and death. The raging debate for today's millenials is whether to download without getting caught. The World War II generation provided us with a model that subsequent generations have decided to mock and ultimately invalidate.

I was reminded of this today, while taking my lunch from work, as I tuned into Jim Rome’s radio program. Unbeknownst to me, Rome had interviewed Halberstam on several occasions. When I first turned the radio on, I knew that a guest was speaking. I didn’t know it was Halberstam, but I knew it was someone important, just as you always do, when greatness is at the podium.

Rome played several clips from various interviews, including Halberstam speaking of Ted Williams and how he first met him for an interview at his hotel in Florida. Williams apparently showed up at 8am, on the dot, as they had agreed. When Halberstam opened the door, Teddy Ballgame, in his characteristic gruff way bellowed, “You like just like your goddamn photograph!” Halberstam recounted that the interview lasted for 12 hours, with Williams talking about how he tried to teach “that goddamn Doerr” to uppercut the ball and he never did.

In thinking of Halberstam and Williams, men from a time fading fast from our memories, already clouded by unending technology and by the belief that speed and innovation trumps everything else, I’m reminded of the Major League All Star Game, July 14, 1999.

In rode arguably, the game’s greatest hitter, in a golf cart. As the cart made its way in from right field, with the 80-year-old legend waving to the adoring crowd, a group of major leaguers waited near the mound, like a bunch of little leaguers about to meet their idol. Carlton Fisk, another Red Sox great, heroic in his own right, but diminished by Williams, waited at the plate, to receive Williams’ ceremonial first pitch. Nomar, Big Mac (before his name had been tarnished by the steroid scandal), Tony Gwynn, Sosa, Larry Walker, all gathering around Teddy Ballgame. Williams wanted to talk baseball with all the players. Reports are that many of them got choked up, including Walker. Tears welled up in Ted’s eyes, as he understood the significance of the moment. Unlike so much that’s choreographed in athletic events in our era, the announcer’s pleas for the players to return to the dugouts went unheeded, as the players and Williams didn’t want this to end.

Finally, Ted threw his pitch and the cart took him to his seat alongside the commissioner, as one of baseball’s great moments had come to an end.

Williams has left us, as have many others from his era, including Halberstam. As their lives fade from view, the lamp that illuminates the deeds that defined them dims and I find myself wondering who among us will be able to keep it lit, however faintly it burns?