Robinson gets final last chance on defunct mill

by Duke Harrington
     
     OXFORD - It appears that John Robinson is on his final, last chance.
     
     On Friday, June 19, Oxford selectmen called an emergency meeting to begin enforcement action against the sixth generation owner of the defunct Robinson Manufacturing mill complex.
     
     Oxford took the mill March 12 for $162,971 in back taxes. In prior interviews, Robinson, who could not be reached for this article, admitted that he stopped paying the power bill at the mill and its associated wastewater treatment plant at that point.
     
     When it became clear that Robinson, and not the town, would be responsible for the light bill, the Raymond legislator, who has lived much of the past year at a family camp in Oxford while going through a divorce, tried to work a payment plan on the $18,000 tab.
     
     Negotiations failed, however, and on June 2, Central Maine Power cut the juice.
     
     That blackened Robinson's already strained relationship with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which has allowed him to run the treatment plant without a license since December, in hopes he could come to terms with the town.
     
     The loss of power to the treatment plant left eight apartments owned independently by Robinson but served by the treatment plant without septic services. Since then, a Robinson-employed contractor, Craig Delano, has used a generator every day to hand pump the apartments' wet tanks over to the treatment plant.
     
     Oxford selectmen gave Robinson a 14-day notice to install a septic system for the apartment units. The town office was disconnected from the treatment plant and put on its own, private, system within 24 hours of the CMP action.
     
     On the fourteenth and final day, Sumner Sessions, who installed the town system appeared at the town office to say he could not begin work for Robinson. Civil engineer Walter Horton, of Bridgton, declined to hand his plans over until Robinson crossed his palm. With no plan on file, no signed contract with Sessions, and no word from Robinson, selectmen met to begin enforcement.
     
     That action gave Robinson 10 days to get his tenants on a private septic system. That deadline ran out out Monday. Town Manager Michael Chammings said Tuesday he still has not heard directly from Robinson, although Horton's plans, now apparently paid for, were filed with the town Friday.
     
     Still work has not started and the best information Chammings has is that Robinson is trying to put together funds to put Sessions to work by the end of the week.
     
     However, that's not good enough, says Chammings. Robinson has 15-days to appeal the town's enforcement action, after which Chammings says he and the town attorney, Geoffrey Hole, will take him to court. Fines ranging from $200 to $2,000 per day could be assessed on Robinson retroactive to Monday, June 29.
     
     Meanwhile, on June 23, Oxford's health officer, Samantha Hewey, posted notice with Robinson's tenants that they will be evicted by the town if Robinson has not corrected "conditions dangerous and detrimental to life" within 30 days.
     
     As of Tuesday, only four of Robinson's eight units remained occupied. All but one are reportedly home to single parents. Each is home to two or more children, all but two of whom are less than 13 years of age.
     
     Finally, Robinson got a letter from the DEP June 25 advising that he'd used his last of his proverbial "get-out-of-jail-free cards" there as well.
     
     In the letter, Brian Kavanah, director of DEP's Division of Water Quality Management, advised Robinson that it no longer intended to practice " enforcement discretion." Because Robinson has continued to pump effluent from his apartments into the treatment plant after the power was cut, and more importantly, past a DEP imposed cutoff date of June 22, and because Robinson has submitted "no plan for disposal of sludge and untreated waste" at the plant, DEP will begin enforcement action of its own, wrote Kavanah.
     
     DEP has previously promised fines equal to the ones Chammings intends to pursue.
     
     Robinson has indicated in previous interviews that he intends to "mothball" the treatment plant, but that he also plans to procure a new operating permit, to give the property "greater value" to any potential buyer.
     
     Robinson is currently working with partners to sell the adjacent marina property, split last fall into a separate lot from the mill complex.
     
     Robinson has said he hopes to use that sale to finance a purchase and sale agreement he signed with the town, which will allow him to buy back the mill complex for back taxes. That agreement calls on Robinson to make his next scheduled payment, for $7,000, on or before July 13.