AUGUSTA – The state Board of Environmental Protection ruled Thursday that residents have the right to appeal the West Old Town Landfill project. The BEP agreed to hear the appeals at a future meeting and will subsequently rule on whether or not the project goes forward.

We the People, a group of residents opposed to the landfill deal, and Paul Schroeder of Orono appealed the Department of Environmental Protection’s April 9 decision approving the project. Even if the BEP rejects the appeal, the anti-landfill groups say they will go to court in an effort to block the project.

We the People also requested that the BEP hold a formal hearing on the deal at which details of the operation would be aired. That request was denied by the board at Thursday’s meeting at the Holiday Inn.

“The board obviously listened carefully and reviewed the information it had before it,” Tom Doyle, an attorney for Casella Waste Systems Inc., the company that will run the landfill, said after the ruling. “The State Planning Office and Casella are pleased that the request to have a public hearing was denied.”

The board voted 3-3 to deny the formal hearing. In a tie vote, the motion does not carry.

“I think it was significant that the people who voted against a public hearing were the new board members,” We the People attorney Marcia Cleveland of Brunswick said. “I’m rather surprised that they chose not to have a hearing.”

Some board members said that it would be better in terms of appearance to hold a hearing since there was ample public interest and the state’s involvement in the deal could appear questionable to outsiders.

The three-way landfill deal among the state, Georgia-Pacific Corp. and Casella was designed to help keep the Old Town paper mill open while addressing the state’s waste disposal problem. The state bought the site from G-P for $26 million and chose Casella, which runs the Pine Tree Landfill in Hampden, to operate it.

BEP Chairman Richard Wardwell previously recused himself from all matters concerning the landfill ruling because he provided consulting services to Casella as a soils engineer for the State Planning Office during the permitting process.

BEP member Virginia Plummer was chosen to act as the presiding officer. Plummer previously denied the State Planning Office’s motion to dismiss the appeals. The Planning Office said it did not feel that either appellant had standing as an aggrieved person, and challenged whether We the People filed its appeal on time.

“I think we’ve got to move on and try to do it right,” said BEP member Matt Scott, who voted against the hearing process.

Cleveland noted that hearings have been held in much less controversial instances, such as the Brunswick boat ramp.

She did, however, see one positive aspect in the denial of a public hearing.

“Casella and the State Planning Office will ultimately pay the price,” Cleveland said. “In some ways this is a situation where we won if we won and we won if we lost.”

Without a formal hearing, the board must decide on the appeals based solely on the information that already is part of the record. This concerned BEP member Ernest Hilton, who noted that the project, as the first state-owned landfill, is a “major issue.”

“I see a lot of holes in the record here myself,” Hilton said.

Cleveland said that without the opportunity to submit additional information, Casella and the State Planning Office will have a weak case. It also will be difficult for We the People, however, because they have new information that they wish the board to hear.

“Now we’re not going to be able to offer anything new and we’re still finding stuff,” We the People member Debbie Gibbs of Alton said Thursday after the meeting.

We the People also held a press conference Thursday morning to make public the documents they discovered two days ago. The documents refer to the original 1991 Fort James Corp. request for a landfill permit to use the site for the disposal of mill sludge.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service recommended that the original 1991 permit not be granted because the landfill would have “significant” impacts on wetland habitats and groundwater at the site, according to the documents.

Because of the appeals, the state and Casella have slowed down development of the site. They decided to hold off creating additional capacity to the landfill until next fall, but have begun the $1 million project to pave the entrance road.

Board Executive Analyst Cindy Bertocci said she must now figure out the best way to get the board the information it needs from the extensive record that has been created throughout the landfill permitting process.