BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 26, 2025
Nearly 60 years after industrial mercury pollution began contaminating the Penobscot River, a project to remediate it has taken a step forward. One of the legal entities established to run the multimillion dollar cleanup, Greenfield Penobscot Estuary Mercury Remediation Trust, filed state and federal permit applications last week for a pilot project to cap East Cove in Orrington with several inches of sand. If approved, the results of that multiyear pilot would help determine how the trust remediates at least nine tons of mercury that have remained in the river and its estuary since the late 1960s. The overall remediation is expected to take years.