DEP may change mind on Brewer dump closing

The Department of Environmental Protection soon may change its mind and give Brewer permission to accept pulverized glass, grit and unburnable materials from the Orrington trash incinerator at the city’s landfill.

Called front-end process residue, the material will be used as a fill material at the landfill, and later capped with clay.

City Manager Harold Parks said that DEP officials were expected to approve dumping on the western half of the landfill, providing about $500,000 of income from PERC. Soil studies of the eastern half of the dump may result in approval of dumping FEPR on that section, too, but it is too early to predict the outcome of soils tests.

The City Council had lamented a recent DEP ruling against the dumping of residue from PERC, an operation that would have provided about $1 million of income for the city to be used toward landfill closing. DEP officials had said that Brewer’s landfill could be affected by an earthquake and had demanded that studies be done to show that the area was suitable for FEPR disposal.

The council had interpreted the ruling as a rejection of the Brewer facility for FEPR dumping and severely criticized the agency for not aiding communities with solid-waste disposal problems.

Parks also said Friday that the search for a new public works garage site would continue Tuesday as city councilors examine several potential parcels. That search is needed because several storage areas at the dump used by the Public Works Department must be cleared before dump closing can be completed. Sand and salt and construction materials are among the things stored by the department at the landfill, Parks said.

Parks said that he understood the DEP approval was being “expedited” at Augusta. Parks said that the approval was considered by Brewer officials as “appropriate at this point, while we do additional testing on the easterly portion of the landfill.” He described the subsurface testing as addressing concerns about the clay soils on that side of the landfill.

There was no exact timetable on landfill closing, Parks said, and Civil Engineering Services of Brewer was under contract and working toward a closeout plan. The FEPR dumping represented “a kind of ancillary effort toward closeout,” Parks said.

“I’ve heard from two sources that the order will be granted next week or the week after. The order is going through the channels, and I understand it’s being expedited.”

FEPR dumping at Brewer will benefit the region, too, Parks said. When Brewer learned that the DEP would not allow dumping, FEPR from Orrington was taken to the Sawyer Environmental Recovery Facility in Hampden, where it was dumped in a secure landfill that had been reserved for asbestos disposal. Parks said that the asbestos dump site was a scarce commodity needed by the region and that it would be available again for disposal of the hazardous material.

A special meeting of the council Tuesday morning will include a tour of about six potential sites for the garage.

Parks said that the present site, near the Penobscot River, did not provide the “highest and best” use of that property and that the aging garage no longer was suited to public works use.

Among the parcels to be examined is a site on Clisham Road off Wilson Street. That property had been offered for sale to the city for $250,000 and city officials last year approved raising a $5,000 option. Parks said that the option was lost when the city declined to develop the parcel, which contained ledge detrimental to development.

The Clisham Road site would remain in the site selection process, Parks said, because other areas contained wetlands that also would increase development costs.