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Scot McFarlane is a river historian and founder of the Oxbow History Company. He lives in Bowdoinham.
My colleagues often joke that I can find a way to connect any topic to my passion for the history of rivers, and this is certainly true with the current crisis of President Joe Biden refusing to step down as the Democratic nominee following his disastrous debate. In this case, the most appropriate historical precedent is not only about rivers: it is particular to Maine and the history of Mainers relying on all of their senses to lead the nation.
A century ago, many of Maine’s rivers became so polluted that they began to stink. On the Androscoggin in Lewiston and Auburn, people vomited when they walked on the bridge over the state’s dirtiest major river. Mainers demanded action as the situation became unbearable. As a result, the paper companies eventually took action for the mess they had largely created. From the 1940s to the 1970s they appointed a Bates chemistry professor, Walter Lawrance, as “Rivermaster” to abate the nuisance.
Lawrance used a variety of approaches to fix the problem of the fetid Androscoggin. During the most putrid summer months Lawrance took regular measurements of odor along the riverbanks using a slightly less scientific instrument from his laboratory: his nose. He described the types of smells such as musty or pig-pen, and also odor intensity levels.
Among the many problems with Lawrance’s odor readings is that your sense of smell declines with age, and all the more so after decades of inhaling the rotten egg smell of hydrogen sulfide misting off the Great Falls in Lewiston. By the time Lawrance was recording his observations in the early 1970s he was in his late 70s, around the same age when Biden became president. So, when Lawrance announced that his efforts to clean the Androscoggin had mostly succeeded, Mainers pushed back.
In a 1971 letter to the editor of the Lewiston Daily Sun, a local duck hunter questioned Lawrance’s credibility, “If Mr. Lawrance feels the river is improving and the smell only sporadic it must be because he is living at least five miles from the river and checking it from an airplane.”
Like this duck hunter who trusted his own senses, Mainers can see and hear Biden’s performance at the debate for themselves, and any falsehoods disguised as talking points only serves as further insult.
Yet this river story offers further lessons for our current moment. Even as Lawrance, who was appointed by the mills, remained focused on critical press stories, Maine’s U.S. senator, Edmund Muskie, was listening to Mainers and taking action. In 1972 Congress passed what we now call the Clean Water Act.
Pushed through by Muskie, the law led to the rapid improvement in water quality on rivers like the Androscoggin through improved regulations and substantial federal funding for wastewater treatment plants. Muskie’s leadership at the behest of countless Mainers has led to one of the greatest environmental success stories in the history of both Maine and the nation.
Above all this is a lesson for Maine’s congressional delegation to listen and lead by publicly asking Biden to step down so a better nominee can run, as no other state with mostly Democrats has done. Mainers still trust their senses, and they can see and hear for themselves as they did in the debate, when a candidate, or rather both candidates, are unfit for another term as president. Though few if any Mainers were at the debate in-person, we can all agree that this stinks.
