No Need to Muck Up Compost Permit Authority

We can pretty much all agree that reducing the amount of chemicals we use to grow our food is a good thing.

But one organic composter’s reluctance to obey Maine’s water quality law should not be an excuse for mischievous lawmakers to plot a hostile jurisdictional takeover of the program.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly the point of a meddling expedition now underway in Augusta.

Robert St. Onge’s Winterwood Farm in Lyman is one of the state’s larger organic composters. In addition to manure, St. Onge takes organic waste from food byproducts he gets from supermarkets, restaurants and seafood processors to make compost.

All these wholesome nutrients are good for plants, but not necessarily for streams and rivers. When heavy downpours in 2005 and 2006 overwhelmed the farm’s underbuilt treatment ponds, the nutrients turned a naturally occurring fungus in a nearby Lords Brook into Mother Nature’s version of The Blob.

But rather than admit error to the Department of Environmental Protection and fix his ponds, St. Onge decided he’d rather try to change the law.

Enter Sen. John Nutting, D-Leeds. The dairy-farming chair of the Agriculture Committee is at the head of an effort to move permitting authority for organic composting facilities like St. Onge’s from DEP to the Agriculture Department, which doesn’t want it, thank you very much.

DEP officials say they’ve tried to work with St. Onge, despite the fact that he violated his initial permit by building undersized holding ponds. Instead, he took his case from District Court to State Superior Court, which brought in the Attorney General’s Office. Fortunately, the two sides are headed to mediation.

St. Onge has a heck of a business. But it needs to abide by state law, just like everyone else.

(c) 2007 Portland Press Herald. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.