SEARSPORT - Ron Huber’s descriptions of the bluff on the west side of Kidder Point are as colorful as the rock-like clumps of chemistry and stains that mark the beach there.

A “toxic teabag” and “pocket of poison” are two of the expressions the executive director of Friends of Penobscot Bay used recently to describe an area visible from the Sears Island Causeway. There’s also a plume of pollution fanning out from the shore into the water, and this he likened to a flame — the acidity of the runoff literally burning an area once known for clamming.

The source of so much calamity and inspiration is the 152-acres inland from the beach, property owned since 1994 by GAC Chemical and home to chemical businesses dating back another 40 years, including Delta Chemicals and W.R. Grace & Company. Earlier plants made fertilizer. A common thread among all the more recent ones including GAC has been the production of aluminum sulfate, a synthetic alum used in paper making — GAC originally stood for General Alum Corporation. In 1999 the company rebranded itself under the pseudo-acronym GAC to reflect an expansion into other specialty chemicals used in pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, agriculture and water treatment.

In days of fewer regulations, waste materials from the combinations of bauxite, clay and sulfuric acid used to make alum were packed into landfills. Some of these were located near the shoreline where Huber believes erosion has allowed them to leach into the bay.

In aerial photos, the teabag analogy seems apt. A light-colored wash emanates from the area of an abandoned sulfuric acid plant on Kidder point. The “plume” as Huber calls it, is easily visible against the mudflats and dark water of the bay. Until recently however, GAC and a host of state and federal regulators have had trouble seeing it, he said.

“The problem we’ve had is Maine DEP sort of jumping on the grenade, over and over and over again,” he said. “If there’s a problem, they go, ‘Well, we’ll do a site walk.’ And that’s the horror.”

In 2012, Huber said DEP representatives walked the beach with his advocacy group Friends of Penobscot Bay. A decade earlier, the agency had recommended shoring up the bluff, but nothing had happened. Likewise, the later investigation ended with no formal conclusion.

“The challenge with them is: if you make conclusions, then you have to defend them,” Huber said. “If you just go, ‘We did the walk and that was it,’ then that was it.”

Recently things appear to be happening. In mid-November, GAC applied to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s Voluntary Response Action Program, which allows property owners to do their own testing and remediation in exchange for protections from agency enforcement actions. 

Speaking on Dec. 1, Nick Hodgkins of Maine DEP said he had just received new documents from GAC that day and had not yet reviewed them. He did not have them in electronic form to share via email.

At a glance, Hodgkins said the latest documents appeared to contain new information from tests ordered by GAC. In accordance with DEP guidelines, the initial application submitted in November used old data from the site. GAC’s president and CEO David Colter told the Bangor Daily News that recommendations in the mid-’90s were to “leave it alone and let nature run its course.”

Colter did not respond to several requests made by Penbaypilot.com seeking comment.

Based on the initial application, Huber anticipated that a derelict sulfuric acid plant on Kidder Point would be torn down, but he voiced concern that roughly an acre of contaminated fill near the beach identified by Maine DEP in 1998 would not be treated.

However, scanning the packet from GAC on Monday, Hodgkins said the title of the report suggested “they are planning to do some stabilization of the shoreline.” He anticipated delving further into the the plan later this week.

Whatever resolution comes to pass between GAC and DEP, Huber said the broader challenge in protecting the bay will be to get more stakeholders involved.

As one of the most visible conservationists in the area for many years, Huber seems aware of the fine line between the rewards of dedication and the risk of being cast as a monomaniacal loner. At a small protest on the highway outside GAC Chemical on Nov. 15, he tempered his flamboyant metaphors with dry details and a self-deprecating sense of humor. In the GAC campaign, he said he’s been grateful to have the Down East Lobsterman’s Association and the Searsport Shellfish Committee involved. 

“[If a call to action comes from] people who have a stake in it, an economic stake in it, as well as people like me who are basically clam huggers,” he said, “then they may realize that the community cares and it’s not just a couple of gadflies.”

Ethan Andrews can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com