Aroostook firm offers land for low-level radioactive waste site

A 500-acre site in Aroostook County has been offered for evaluation as a potential site for low-level radioactive waste, it was announced Wednesday by the director of the Maine Low-level Radioactive Waste Authority.

The site, owned by Maple Mountain Manganese Co. and located in Township D Range 2 WELS west of Bridgewater, is the second to be “volunteered” for consideration as a site for a disposal facility for the low-level radioactive waste produced at the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant, hospitals and other laboratories in the state. The first site offered was the nuclear power plant itself, which is located in Wiscasset.

John Williams, executive director of the authority, announced Wednesday in Augusta that an application had been received from Irwin Higgins, president of Maple Mountain Manganese Co. The authority will begin to gather information about the Aroostook County site, Williams said.

Speaking from Oakridge, Tenn., where he is technical director for Lake Industries, Higgins said that he, as president of Maple Mountain Manganese Co., had been contacted by the Authority about the possibility of volunteering the land for evaluation as a disposal site. He and the other partners in the company decided it would be “OK (for the authority) to take a look at it.”

The 500-acre site has been held by a series of partners from Aroostook County for about 50 years, Higgins said. He wasn’t involved until just a few years ago, but most of the other current partners are related to or have long associations with the original purchasers, he said.

The land was bought because it contains low-grade manganese, an ore used in the making of steel which is “100 percent imported,” Higgins said. The hope has always been to mine and process the manganese, but to date it hasn’t been possible or profitable, he said. In recent years, some timber harvesting has been done on the land.

The Authority has already completed some preliminary review work at the Maine Yankee site, Williams said. At Wednesday’s meeting, the Authority voted to formally accept Maine Yankee’s application and to begin a detailed study of the site.

The Authority, which is charged by law with finding a site for and constructing a disposal facility for low-level radioactive waste, is scheduled to designate a small number of potential sites by September of 1991. To meet that goal, the authority solicited landowners for potential sites this summer. Letters were sent to all the large landowners in the unorganized portion of the state and to everyone with more than 200 acres of land registered in tree growth.

The Authority also has a statewide screening process under way. Williams said that regions of the state most likely to contain sites will be announced in November.