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Kidder Point Legacy Shoreline Waste Remediation Project.

Update September 16, 2016 Sediment sampling finds low pH leachate continues to enter Stockton harbor from GAC property. (9 page MEL Report)

Update Sept 8, 2015 VICTORY!!!! GAC Chemical Corp finally removes highly acidic wastes from its shoreline! Details to come...

Update. August 22, 2015. No visible remediation activity. CES has been contracted to carry out the removal of sulfuric acid rich wastes from ground in front of abandoned sulfuric acid plant.

June 2015. GAC Chemical acid waste cleanup hanging fire. State agency puzzled. Polluter staying mum. DEP Nick Hodgkins wrote FOPB on June 16th that "...they haven’t notified me yet of a start date..... I would expect they would inform us if they chose not to do the work."

Backstory: In 2014, GAC revealed a plan to deal with "previously unknown" deposits of sulfur waste above the shore next to the abandoned sulfuric acid factory. GAC Chemical's December 2014 application to MDEP proposes removing sulfurous waste and shoring up part of its eroding shore. This would be done pursuant to Maine's Voluntary Response Action Program. See MEDIA COVERAGE

AT ISSUE. Kidder Point's shore received thousands of tons of highly acidic waste slurries laid down as fill material behind wooden cribs between 1940 and 1970 on the sides of the 5 acre peninsula (Kidder Point) that the abandoned acid factory is perched on. These wastes are byproducts of fertilizer making for Maine's potato industry, alum production for Maine's paper industry, and sulfuric acid production to carry out both of the above. The cribs weren't maintained after 1970 when shoreline dumping was banned under the federal Clean Water Act. Some of them have failed: See Here and Here and Here To this day, very visible, very acidic long lasting multicolored plumes of eroding waste have been entering these waters at the southwest corner of Stockton Harbor and its tidal mud beneath the old factory,(July 17, 2014 aerial photo).

Kidder Point Industrial Site History
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* News & reports from 1903 -1974 about this site & nearby Mack Point
* 1984 DEP consultant's 1984 sulfuric acid spill report.
* 1984 Surface sampling
* 1984 pH testing of acid spill. Drawn map
* 1990 Testing of 'Alum Reactor Waste' 9/14/90
* 1993 DEP consultant's 1993 site summary
* 1998 photo of tainted mud (acid tank in background)
* 1998 site assessment by Delta Chemical 3/17/98 pt1
* 1998 site assessment 3/17/98 pt2
* 1998 media coverage of spill detection & cleanup
* 2002 draft settlement agreement CLF & GAC

FOPB GAC Shore visits
7/21/13 ** 3/10/13 ** 5/6/12 ** 4/22/12 GAC aerial photographs

Use Back Button to Return Here aerial photos from 1940 and 2011. See expansion of the point into the harbor.
See a large 1993 map of then-Delta Chemical's waste sites and landfills .
* Google earth aerials of site 1997-2011
* 2011 GAC Chemical aerial w/company property lines.
* (5) Kidder Point waste fill areas
* 2004 Aerial with now-razed fertilizer-then-bauxite quonset hut. *** w/o quonset hut (2011).

MDEP staff with oversight responsibilities

July 17, 2014 Lighthawk Flight
* GAC property, Sears Island & upper Penobscot Bay
* Abandoned Peninsula, old acid factory, plume
* Abandoned sulfuric acid plant, plume
* Abandoned acid plant from above, close-in plume
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May 3, 2013 LightHawk Flight
* Tainted cove looking South. ** looking North.
* Kidder Point tainted cove & Sears Island.
* Old acid factory, eroding wastes & leacheates