MADAWASKA — With less than four weeks before the Northern Aroostook Regional Incinerator Facility reaches its deadline for a decision on future solid-waste disposal for much of the St. John Valley, another option became available Thursday night.

NARIF, with members from Fort Kent, Madawaska and Frenchville, is investigating a Lundell recycling system and continued incineration for solid-waste disposal. They are under a Nov. 30 deadline with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice for a decision on the future of its present solid-waste disposal system.

The NARIF system disposes of solid waste for more than a dozen northern Maine communities. NARIF also will be paying a $125,000 fine for allegedly operating illegally for most of the last eight years, a fine which is included in the present consent decree with EPA and the Department of Justice.

Thursday night Brian Bailey of Bedminster Bioconversion Corp. of Cherry Hill, N.J., discussed composting with directors. He said it was one of the most viable options to solid-waste disposal today.

He said about 60 percent of the waste stream was compostible and that 85 of that amount could become marketable compost. He said the system developed in the United States by Eric Eweson had been used in Europe for three decades. He showed a video of two such facilities in Texas and Minnesota.

He said there are 10 composting facilities in the United States, five of them in Minnesota. He said the system used an aerobic process to decompose solid waste into compost in a couple of weeks. He said only 15 percent of the waste brought to the Minnesota site goes to a landfill. The remainder is marketed as compost.

His company sets up facilities and operates them or sells the equipment and operates the completed facility. He said they keep the operation part of the system because it is crucial to the system’s working well. The system needs 11 people to operate it.

He said a facility cost about $70,000 per disposed ton per day. In other words, a facility to dispose of 100 tons of solid waste a day would cost about $7 million. The tipping fee at a company-owned facility would be about $65 per ton of solid waste, said Bailey.

He said the company was in a position to finance the operation.

The system also uses municipal sludge, another disposal problem for many communities.

While in Aroostook County, Bailey said, he will make a presentation to an Aroostook Countywide solid-waste-disposal committee. He said the optimum facility in Aroostook would be one 200-ton unit to do all of Aroostook County.

A 150-ton facility would need about 10 acres and have buildings with about 75,000 square feet of floor area.

In other business Thursday night, Chairman Arthur Faucher gave directors a rundown of a meeting held earlier in the week at Augusta with officials of the Maine Waste Management Agency.

Directors were informed of a roadside trash problem on the road leading to the NARIF incinerator from Route 1. Administrator Philip Levesque and operator Normand Cyr were instructed to find a solution, including the cleanup of the roadside.

It was agreed that one night would be used later this month for special town meetings in Fort Kent, Madawaska and Frenchville to discuss the NARIF facility and the future of solid-waste disposal in the three towns.

Members expecting an estimate of costs next week on the construction of a new incinerator.

The next meeting of the NARIF board was set for Thursday, Nov. 8, at Frenchville.