RUMFORD, Maine — Forty years ago, the Androscoggin River was one of the most polluted waterways in the country.
Today, it’s clean enough for kayaking.
On Thursday, nine paddlers jumped into their canoes and kayaks for a 9-mile journey along the river from Hanover to just above Pennacook Falls in Rumford.
Thursday’s paddle was the eighth leg of the Androscoggin Source to the Sea Trek, a 170-mile journey from the river’s headwaters near the Canadian border to its terminus at Merrymeeting Bay in Brunswick. The trek, in its 17th year, is run by the Androscoggin River Watershed Council.
“The purpose of the trek is to introduce, or reintroduce, people to the Androscoggin, a river that a generation ago was treated more like a sewer than the beautiful natural area it is today,” said Jessie Perkins, program coordinator for the Androscoggin River Watershed Council. Participation in this year’s trek is up 30 percent over last year, Perkins said.
At 10 a.m. Thursday, Perkins and her fellow paddlers set out from a boat launch in Hanover. One of those paddlers, Don Nodine, had paddled in nearly every leg of the journey since its start on Lake Umbagog. A resident of Millinocket, Nodine intends to paddle the full length of the river, camping along the way in his Dodge Grand Caravan.
“I’m camping along the way in my minivan that I’ve converted,” Nodine said, gesturing to a van carrying two kayaks, a mattress and piles of paddling gear. “I call it a mini motor home.”
Nodine knows Maine’s rivers well. He spent 31 years working at Great Northern Paper, where he participated in efforts to clean up the chemicals and other pollutants that once streamed freely from the area’s paper mills.
“When I went to work in 1966, anything they didn’t want went right into the river,” Nodine said.
All that changed in 1972, when Congress passed the Clean Water Act. Championed by the late Gov. Edmund Muskie, the legislation was partly inspired by the polluted Androscoggin. Though portions of the river are still polluted 40 years later, the waterway is much cleaner than Nodine remembers.
“It’s clean,” Nodine said. “You wouldn’t be aware that it was one of the dirtiest rivers in the country prior to the Clean Water Act.”
On Thursday’s trip, the boaters encountered calm water as they paddled their way past Rumford Point and into Rumford. It’s a stretch of the river that winds past verdant farms and forests, and is home to numerous eagles and other forms of wildlife — a far cry from the region’s polluted past.
“You wouldn’t think that Rumford has that reputation,” Perkins said. “It’s one of those sections that you wouldn’t think is as beautiful as it is. You get away from the road and you see eagles, you see herons, sometimes you see turtles — anything.”
To Jim Bourque of Gilead, the Androscoggin is a gem. A Massachusetts native who recently retired and moved to Maine, Bourque doesn’t take any stretch of the Androscoggin for granted.
“I think it’s pristine, because I’m coming from Massachusetts with the Charles River and stuff,” Bourque said. “They talk about it still being a little dirty from the mills, but to me this is fantastic.”
For more stories from the Sun Journal, visit Sunjournal.com.
If the tea party had their way back then,we’d still be using them as a sewer system
You are exactly correct!! Please read the comment about my father. I grew up in Berlin, NH, where the pollution more or less starts. We lived right next to the river. I remember when the foam on the river was two feet deep. You couldn’t hear a rock splash; it just went into the river. Coos County in NH has the highest rate of cancer in the state. All that stuff going into the air and the river. I am lucky guy; I am the survivor of four cancers.
You should make some tea from it.
A cleaner river thanks to people like my father Senator Otto Oleson. When Dad ran for the NH legislature in the 60’s, the Androscoggin River was one of the top ten polluted rivers in the US. One reason he got into politics was to clean up the River…After all the pollution of the River started in New Hampshire not Maine. So after serving in the NH House and Senate for almost thirty years, Dad was able to see the Androscoggin open to canoeing, fishing, swimming, and other recreation. And for the dingbats who are in favor of term limits, it took one hundred plus years for the Androscoggin to get polluted; it wasn’t going to get fixed by legislators who served only one or two terms; it was a long range project.
Where are the Cowards? Where are the spineless wimps? Yes, I do mean the Tea Party, yes, I do mean the so called conservatives. If you really believed in what you say you would be here condemning the clean up as a tax raising job killing development.
You already tried to kill the clean water act, and now this is in your face, where are you?? Hello? Hello? Only the sounds of silence when you have to face reality. Oh yeah, you too, gub nah.