Casella’s landfill plans won’t improve anything

It is interesting that the commentary by Don Meagher of Casella Waste Systems would appear under the headline “Landfill fact and fiction” (BDN, March 13-14). Wasn’t it Meagher who claimed in a recent WABI interview that Casella would not allow any out-of-state waste into the West Old Town Landfill if that facility receives a license from the Department of Environmental Protection?

Fact: Meagher has made the claim about “no out-of-state waste” for weeks now, as have his allies in the Baldacci administration (Martha Freeman, BDN, Feb. 18). Meagher omits the fact that his oft-stated position on out-of-state waste has been exactly as Casella opponent Bill Lippincott described in the pages of the BDN on March 11: Out-of-state waste magically becomes in-state waste as soon as it is processed at a Maine incinerator.

Why would Meagher and Casella make such a clumsy attempt to deceive the public about out-of-state waste? I believe it is because the company realizes that Mainers are basically good and decent people, and that such attributes can be used against citizens to the benefit of unscrupulous landfill profiteers. Mainers don’t need to be scolded by Meagher as though we are naive school children who haven’t learned the realities of solid waste disposal (“OK, everyone who doesn’t generate solid waste, please raise your hand.”)

We are aware of the obvious, which is why Mainers have worked on such initiatives as Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, outlined in the BDN articles of March 6-7. But with Casella’s penchant for importing out-of-state waste to turn a profit, what good does it do Mainers to recycle? Reducing the waste stream by recycling, and other means, only frees up more space in Casella’s landfills for out-of-state waste. Casella’s importation of waste makes a mockery of Mainers’ attempts to create less waste. Thus, for Meagher and Casella, it is best to hide those waste imports from the people through the use of deceptive language.

It is that same deceptive language which allows Meagher to deny that the expansion of the West Old Town Landfill is really an expansion at all. Meagher made the claim in a B-98.5 FM radio discussion in Augusta last month, stating that the growth of the West Old Town Landfill by millions of tons of waste is not really an expansion because the mountain of trash would grow upward, not outward beyond the current footprint of the dump. Meagher does not mention in his fact and fiction column that a landfill expansion requires a brand new license. And a brand new license comes only after a thorough adjudicatory process, which generally takes up to three years to complete properly. Thus, for Casella and the state, it is best to hide the expansion behind more deceptive language as the company and the state rush to license the Old Town site.

Even more deception allows Meagher to state in his piece “the sale of the landfill will allow the Georgia-Pacific mill to reduce its operating costs, thereby saving hundreds of high-paying, local manufacturing jobs.” The fact is that G-P in Old Town has not promised to save a single job through this landfill scheme. Why would Meagher and Casella mislead the public about this topic? Once again, it seems that solid-waste profiteers understand that Mainers are basically good and decent people who would swallow a bad landfill deal to save the jobs of their neighbors.

Little support would be had for Casella by revealing their expected billions in profits, at the expense of the people living in this region. Being forced to accept this as a done deal, from first notice, will leave in many only sour acceptance, anger and loss of respect for bureaucrats and politicians This deal lacks democracy and in fact is a perversion of democratic process.

Meagher and Casella claim to “give back generously to the communities in which we operate facilities.” The fact is that Casella has a long history of bringing costly lawsuits to their host communities, depleting the treasuries of towns like Hampden which dare to stand up against Casella’s appetite for waste and ever-increasing landfill space. Just ask town manager Susan Lessard how much it cost the citizens of Hampden to fight against Casella’s expansion in her community. That is, if she is allowed to speak freely about Casella under the agreement that the town was forced to sign if the community is to get any host benefits from the company at all.

Meagher writes that Casella does not deal in waste that is toxic or hazardous. Yet, tests completed by the state toxicologist, at the request of Rep. Joanne Twomey, found unacceptable levels of dioxin and lead in a dusting of ash that floated over Biddeford from the Maine Energy Recovery Co. incinerator in October 1988. The toxicologist determined that the ash was a health risk to the children and elderly of Biddeford, and MERC was fined $2 million. Casella plans to concentrate 30 years worth of incinerator ash within the West Old Town Landfill.

Unfortunately, the BDN’s op-ed page does not contain enough space to describe the sum total of misleading claims that Casella has made in Maine, and continues to make. If the state grants Casella the right to expand in Old Town, then we will have 30 more years of deceptive language from the company. Not to mention the millions of tons of out-of-state waste which will fill one of the largest new landfills in the Eastern United States.

And after all that, Meagher still has the boldness to describe Casella’s plans for the West Old Town Landfill as “improvements.”

Stan Levitsky, of Old Town, is a free-lance graphic artist.