New England's Dilemma

Of all the major regions in the U.S., only New England does not have an operating refinery. The result has been some of the highest fuel prices in the nation. At least five refineries have been proposed from Maine to Rhode Island in the past year. Only last month the voters of the university town of Durham, N.H., turned down a bid by Aristotle Onassis' Olympic Refineries Inc. to build a huge 400,000-bbl.-per-day facility. Their objection: the refinery would mar the unspoiled coastline.

Now another proposal is in trouble. The Pittston Co., a big oil-distribution and coal-mining corporation (1972 sales: $625 million), wants to put up a 250,000-bbl.-per-day refinery in East port (pop. 2,000), where Maine meets Canada. Like Durham, Eastport has a glorious, wild shoreline with rocky peninsulas, twisting coves and hidden bays. It also has a deepwater harbor big enough to accommodate today's enormous supertankers. But, unlike Durham, it is a gray and decaying town. Eastport is too far from big cities to be a summer haven for tourists, and so its economy is dependent on declining fishing and fish-processing industries. Unemployment is so high that the area has been called "a down-East Appalachia."

The Pittston refinery would be an economic bonanza, and thus has some local support. It would cost $350 million to build and would pay about 90% of Eastport's tax bill. The refinery and its storage tanks would cover 650 acres --and under Maine law, Pittston must either own or have firm options on the land before it can get state approval for the project. The requirement hikes the value of as yet unsecured parcels.

Pittston is said to have offered Mearl Corp., which transforms fish scales into raw materials for shirt buttons and lipstick, as much as $7 million for a key 35-acre plot.

Still, some local landowners vow not to sell at any price. Others, including Mearl Chairman Harry Mattin, have refused to commit themselves until Maine's board of environmental protection officially rules on the refinery project. What they all fear is a disastrous oil spill that could tar the coastline and wipe out the fisheries.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, fog blankets Eastport more than 60 days a year. Beyond that, the waters are treacherous and powerful tides often submerge navigational buoys. One of the few pilots now licensed to guide large ships into Eastport, Captain Amos Mills, testified at public environmental hearings: "The only thing that Eastport has going for it is deep water; and when that is balanced against the fog and the currents, there is little to recommend the place for tanker traffic." Canada is even considering a law forbidding supertankers from crossing the Canadian waters that provide the only access to Eastport.

An Invitation. Other schemes are being suggested for other places. Gibbs Oil Co. has proposed one refinery inland from the deep harbor at Portland, Me., and Massachusetts politicians have invited oilmen to build another refinery in the economically depressed Lowell-Dracut area. Olympic Refineries has been investigating coastal locations in Rhode Island and New Hampshire. But wherever New England's first refinery may end up, local residents will have to approve it after confronting the persistent dilemma of economics v. ecology --the worst conundrum of the whole energy crisis.

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