Canadian company Daaquam Lumber has paid $240,000 in fines to resolve wastewater violations at a Masardis mill it once owned.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the company entered into a consent agreement in May. Both the DEP and the state attorney general’s office signed off on the case on Monday, according to the environmental agency.
Daaquam, which is owned by Groupe Lebel and Bois Daaquam of Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec, allegedly committed several violations of Maine law and the terms of its permits, including improper wastewater handling and lack of recordkeeping, the DEP said in May. As part of its penalty, the company will help fund the creation of a fish habitat at a nearby stream.
Daaquam was cited for numerous violations at the mill in 2022, including missing repair and training documentation, having incomplete and unsigned records of corrective actions, ditch maintenance failures, uncontrolled windblown particles, illicit wastewater discharge and improper storage of sand and salt, the consent agreement states.
The company addressed some of the violations, but didn’t stop the discharge of pollutants and raw materials into waterways, according to DEP. It also failed to train employees to minimize pollution and did not collect wastewater samples as directed.
Under the consent agreement, Daaquam was fined $99,000 in state civil penalties. It paid an additional $141,000 to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, which will be used in a $306,000 fish habitat enhancement project at Scopan Stream in Masardis.
The effort will support adult salmon and brook trout by building two low dams, or weirs, that will help hold fish and grow their populations, according to the project summary. IF&W had raised $165,000 of the project total, and Daaquam’s payment will complete the funding.
The sawmill launched as Levesque Lumber in 1967 under the ownership of J. Paul Levesque. Following Levesque’s death in 2013, a series of Canadian companies have operated it. Maibec ran it from 2015 to 2018, then Daaquam kept it for seven years.
Irving Forest Products now owns the mill, having acquired it in January.
