Dump issue delays town meeting

LINCOLNVILLE — A special town meeting planned for next Monday has been postponed while Lincolnville and three other towns await a decision by the state on the cleanup of the Jacobs Quarry dump.

In September, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection proposed a consent agreement in which the four towns dumping in the quarry, Lincolville, Hope, Camden and Rockport, pay a $25,000 fine and the estimated $250,000 cost of covering the quarry and stopping the flow of leachate into Lily Pond and eventually into Rockport Harbor.

The towns presented the state with a counterproposal, which is now in the hands of the DEP and the Attorney General’s Office. A decision on the counterproposal is expected within days.

Lincolnville Town Manager Skip Day said Wednesday that since the purpose of the special town meeting is to authorize selectmen to sign the consent agreement, “there’s no point in having the meeting until we have all the information on the dump closing, whether there’s a fine or not. We’ve proposed a solution we think is fair, considering that we’ve tried to work with the state for 10 years to get this taken care of.”

The special meeting probably will take place in January. Also postponed from this week is a vote on whether the town will spend $15,000 for an architect’s study on building a gymnasium at the Lincolnville School. Town athletic events now are held at the community center, which has no seating for spectators, and the busing of students to events.

Rockport Town Manager Don Willard said Wednesday he was optimistic the counterproposal, calling for no fine and the state’s sharing the cost, would be accepted. “The big thing is that we hope not to lose the $75,000 in jobs bond grants for this cleanup,” Willard said. “I do think the parties will come together to a reasonable solution so we can see to it that the environmental cleanup of Jacobs Quarry is completed.” Acceptance of a settlement would require all four towns to hold special town meetings.

The quarry, adjacent to the four-town solid-waste transfer station on Quarry Street in Rockport, has been used as a dump since the 1930s. The towns have not disputed the need to end the contamination of Lily Pond and the harbor, but have long been opposed to paying the entire tab.

Town officials see the state’s demand for a locally funded remedy as an unfunded mandate, since the state allowed the use of quarries as dumps for decades, but then prohibited the practice without providing any money for cleanups.