Six years ago when the State Planning Office took over ownership of the Juniper Ridge Landfill and contracted with Casella Waste Management to operate it, the Maine DEP issued a license and ordered that the landfill would be "operated to help address immediate, short-term and long-term capacity needs of the region and the state."
Expansion of Juniper Ridge was also included in the state's contract with Casella, says Don Meagher, who manages planning and development for Casella in Maine. Meagher says the application to triple the size of Juniper Ridge was an outgrowth of that contract.
"What we were doing was the first step in what the state asked us to do back in 2003, and that was to license 30 years of capacity for the state of Maine at the state-owned landfill up in Old Town," he says. "So we were fulfilling a contractual obligation here."
Meagher say there are a number of variables that make it difficult to plan for landfill capacity that far into the future. It's unclear, for example, what effect a new state-of-the-art waste-to-energy plant in Westbrook might have, once the Maine Energy Recovery incinerator in Biddeford is closed.
And, Meagher says, no one is sure how much waste might be brought into Maine from out of state. "I'll acknowledge that there are a lot of uncertainties in the future but, you know, I'm not sure identifying uncertainties is the basis for not making a decision at all."
Maine DEP Commissioner David Littell says his department needs answers to these and other questions before it can approve expansion at Juniper Ridge. In addition, Littell says the State Planning Office and Casella have failed to demonstrate that there's a public benefit in their proposed project.
"The issue is, it's a very large expansion of the landfill that would give them capacity out 20-25 years," Littel says. "And we looked at their current capacity, which is adequate in excess of ten years, so there doesn't appear to be an immediate need to look at this." In the draft denial of the application, DEP also found that it is not bound by landfill capacity commitments contained in the contract.
Paul Schroeder is a concerned resident of Orono who has been monitoring activities at Juniper Ridge. He says he's encouraged with the DEP's draft order and relieved that Casella and the State Planning Office have withdrawn their application for expansion.
"They basically said, 'Put a brake on that expansion process.' And this definitely -- I would say it would be at least two years before Casella and the State Planning Office can come back and try to do this expansion again."
"I think this is huge," says Taryn Hallweaver, a campaign organizer with the Toxics Action Center, a public health and environmental organization that works with communities and residents to clean up and prevent pollution. "I think it's a success for the citizens of Old Town who have worked tirelessly in pushing for greater transparency and accountability in decision making."
Hallweaver says residents have been concerned about the environmental effects of expanding the landfill. Instead of increasing the size of Juniper Ridge or any other landfill, Hallweaver suggests significantly boosting recycling and composting instead.
Don Meagher of Casella says he does expect his company to file for a new expansion application sometime in the future. A spokesman for the State Planning Office could not be reached by airtime.
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