A controversial landfill expansion in West Old Town received an initial nod of approval from the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection earlier this week. The landfill, now owned by the state, can be expanded if 23 conditions are met, according to a draft approval from Commissioner Dawn Gallagher. The conditions range from the installation of new wells to monitor water quality to installing lights so trucks can better locate the facility’s entrance.

Now that the draft approval has been made public, it is sure to further inflame opposition to the project. Those who object, however, should keep in mind that the DEP has reviewed the site and met its responsibility for environmental safety. In several instances in the 59-page draft order, Commissioner Gallagher goes further, recognizing public concern about an issue and explaining how the DEP investigated this concern and what conclusion it reached after doing so. To say that her decision is based on politics would be disingenuous.

Landfills are controversial because no one wants to live, work or even drive by one, but we all generate trash and expect it to be hauled away and disposed of someplace. This project is even more complex because it involves the transfer of a paper mill-owned facility to the state, leading some to erroneously call it a back-room deal. (The details of the sale were aired before and approved by the Legislature.) Gov. John Baldacci negotiated a deal last year with Georgia-Pacific to keep one tissue machine running at its Old Town mill if the state bought the facility’s landfill. The state agreed to do so for $25 million. G-P plans to use the money to buy a biomass boiler to produce energy for the mill, a project it was unable to undertake for a lack of cash.

Meanwhile, the state had long been investigating a site for a new landfill to take municipal waste because the regional facility in Hampden is nearing capacity. The G-P landfill could be expanded and was fairly easily accessible. It should be kept in mind that the footprint of the licensed G-P landfill is not being expanded. What the state seeks permission to do is to fill it to a taller height than what was approved in 1991.

To do this and to accept municipal waste, it needs approval from the DEP. After a public information session on the matter on Tuesday, Commissioner Gallagher expects to issue her final decision in mid-March.

A recent concern was that a hole in the landfill liner was allowing contamination of groundwater. Further testing showed that the contamination of test wells was due to activities, such as trucks going to and from a leachate pond, not from a leak through the liner. So, the DEP asked that changes be made to the leachate handling process and that further monitoring be done, conditions that have already been agreed to. This is appropriate and should assuage fears.

Further, the DEP notes that the geology of the landfill site has not changed since 1991, when the DEP did a thorough review of its suitability as a site for the G-P dump. Then and now, the landfill is hydraulically isolated from private drinking water supplies in the area.

Another frequent criticism is that the expanded dump will take toxic and out-of-state waste. Neither is legally true, although some out-of-state trash is burned at the incinerators in Orrington and Biddeford and then hauled to landfills. This will continue, although one condition of the DEP draft order is to limit such waste to 310,000 tons a year – less than 5 percent of the waste expected to be taken to the West Old Town landfill.

The DEP has done a thorough review, answered many questions and will field many more next week. Provided that the state and Casella, the company that will operate the landfill, agree to meet the conditions set out by Ms. Gallagher, it is time for this project to move forward.