State urges hearing on septic waste disposal site

MARION TOWNSHIP – The state Department of Environmental Protection is reviewing an application for a septic waste disposal site off Route 186 and will ask the Washington County commissioners to conduct a public information meeting.

“I’m going to talk to the commissioners and suggest a public information meeting,” said Rick Haffner of DEP’s Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management. “We usually ask towns where sites are proposed to have a public meeting – and the commissioners are the town officials for the Unorganized Territories.”

Haffner said Tuesday that last week he visited the site proposed by Stephen Preston Jr. of Edmunds.

Preston is applying for a license to land-spread septic tank sludge on the same 8.65-acre parcel that his father applied for in 1997, he said.

Haffner said the DEP didn’t have a problem with the site at that time, but did not issue Stephen Preston Sr. a license because he didn’t have adequate technical ability to operate the land-spreading operation.

According to DEP’s January 1998 order denying a license to Stephen Preston Sr., the elder Preston operated his own septic tank pumping and transport company, and had a history of illegally handling septic waste.

Preston’s violations included: a 1992 incident in which he illegally discharged waste from a fish hatchery into a gravel pit in Machias; an incident in 1994 where he dumped septic tank sludge off an access road in Reversing Falls Park in Pembroke within 450 feet of the ocean; and 1995 manifests he submitted to the department failed to identify where the septic waste was generated, the amount of the waste or what disposal facility he used.

DEP regulations require septic waste haulers to submit records that include all of that information.

But Haffner said Preston’s son wasn’t involved in those incidents. The younger Preston, who now operates his father’s former septic waste pumping and transport business, has been the operator of Washington County’s septic sludge spreading site at the Marion Transfer Station for years, Haffner said.

The county developed the site in 1990 when land-spreading facilities were limited and many towns were not in compliance with state law that requires municipalities to designate a site for the disposal of septic waste.

There were numerous incidents of illegal dumping, and the county commissioners worked with the Washington County Soil and Water Conservation District to develop a land-spreading site at the county-owned Marion transfer station to serve the Unorganized Territories and towns that couldn’t find suitable sites.

The county does not make a profit on the site, and William Boone, the chairman of the Washington County commissioners, said he thinks another septic waste disposal site would help.

“The Marion septic site has been filled to capacity at times and we’ve had to truck it to Batson’s over in Addison,” Boone said. “It is somewhat of a problem.”

Boone said the commissioners have not had a discussion about the application or taken a position on the proposal, but that he signed the application because the signature of a municipal official was needed to start the process.

“It has to go to a public hearing,” Boone said.

The proposed location is approximately 700 feet from Patrick Lake, according to DEP, and Haffner said he has heard from people who are concerned about the location. DEP regulations require that a site be at least 300 feet from a surface water body, he said.

No one seems to know about the proposal, according to Julie Graham, whose home is within 2,100 feet of the proposed site.

Graham said her husband’s grandfather gave them the property and she is concerned about how the septic spreading operation will affect her family, particularly her 6-month-old daughter.

“My concern is with the water, the air and possible allergies,” Graham said. “The consequences are immense and I’m really hoping it doesn’t go through.”

Graham said her family wasn’t notified of the proposal and that the only public notice there has been is a small ad in a weekly newspaper.

Haffner said Calvin Preston – Stephen Preston Jr.’s uncle and the former supervisor of Washington County’s Unorganized Territories – co-signed the application and that Calvin amended the application last week because the site is less than 2,500 feet from the Graham’s house.

The amendment calls for screening the waste so there are no particles larger than half an inch, and the spreading site will be stabilized with lime, Haffner said.