Payrolls and Pickerel in Maine

An icy northeaster rattled the windows of the statehouse in Augusta while legislators last week considered an issue that was potentially more stormy: imposition of the strongest state anti-pollution controls in the U.S. on an industry that Maine's economy needs. Yet the debate was calm. The lawmakers had become so convinced of the need to protect the environment that the bills aroused only token opposition. As oil lobbyists watched uneasily, the legislation was quickly approved in both houses.

Not that Maine can afford to discourage income-producing industry. One-third of its wage earners make less than $5,000 a year, and in some counties unemployment runs as high as 11%. In the past, says State Representative John Lund, "when an industry said it was coming to the state, you didn't ask what product it made or what it might do to the environment. You just asked how many jobs it would create."

Potential Disaster. In previous years, moreover, when the state legislature tried to enact strong antipollution bills, local industry--especially the pulp and paper companies--hinted that the cost of cleaning up might force them to leave Maine entirely. "Payrolls or pickerel" became the dilemma's label; fish killed by water pollution represented the minimum price for keeping industry and jobs.

Two years ago, encouraged by Governor Kenneth M. Curtis, oil companies began to take a keen interest in Maine. New England could use a big refinery. Lacking one, residents of the six states pay 10% more than the rest of the

U.S. for fuel oil. Because Maine was underdeveloped and had good ports, Occidental Petroleum Corp., Atlantic Richfield and Atlantic World Port each proposed to build a refinery near Machiasport. Another company, King Resources, acquired 300 acres on Long Island in Casco Bay, where it planned to build a huge oil-receiving and storage terminal. At first glance, the projects looked like a bonanza. But few Maine residents rejoiced wholeheartedly. The state's famous thick fogs and treacherous coastal waters made oil spills from tankers a probability--and a potential disaster to Maine's fishing and tourism industries.

Pay Now, Argue Later. The supertanker Manhattan last fall put an end to any doubt about whether oil was coming to an undeveloped part of Maine's coastline (there is already an oil facility in Portland). By successfully battling its way through ice floes, the Manhattan opened the Northwest Passage as a feasible route from Alaska's North Slope oilfields to the domestic market. Maine's deepwater harbors, several studies proved, were the only ones along the Eastern Seaboard that could handle the 300,000-ton supertankers. "Instead of playing penny-ante stuff with the shoe industry, Maine was playing for high stakes with the oil companies," says John N. Cole, editor of the fiercely conservationist Maine Times. "And since the oil men had nowhere else to go, Maine held the ace."

It was a totally different bargaining position from any the down-Easters had ever had before. "We have the oil industry over one of its own barrels," cracked House Majority Leader Har rison L. Richardson. As a result, a bipartisan legislative committee, helped by Governor Curtis' staff, confidently wrote tough new bills to control the future industrial development of Maine. One measure provides for a $4,000,000 fund to finance the cleanup of any oil spills. The companies will have to pay a half-cent levy on every barrel of oil they move into or out of Maine--a prospect that displeases some companies so much that they may test the law's constitutionality. In addition, the law states that the oil companies must accept unlimited liability for damage caused by oil pollution. Nor will the state have to prove negligence to dip into the fund. Richardson, the bill's sponsor, says: "We will clean up the mess first and argue about it later."

The more important measure provides, in effect, statewide industrial zoning regulations. Instead of just moving into any community where it has land, an industry first must have its plans approved by Maine's Environmental Improvement Commission. A tough progressive agency, E.I.C. insists that new industrial facilities of any kind be located so as to cause "minimal adverse impact on the natural environment." The oil companies have not yet decided what they might do about the law. Before last week's vote, the lobbyists pointed out that the bill would contradict the cherished Yankee tradition of local rule in every township. Maine's legislators nonetheless accepted it willingly. They no longer want to choose between payrolls and pickerel.

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