Old Town shouldn’t be only landfill site

The citizens of Old Town have a difficult decision to make in the next few months. Our landfill situation has become an issue of statewide importance.

It all began in the early 1990s when the city has to consider whether to allow the Old Town mill to locate a generator-owned landfill within city limits. The West Old Town site was one of six I looked at as a developer of the Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. when we were required to locate an ash disposal site for the PERC plant in Orrington.

Geologically, the West Old Town location is a good site soil-wise but not as large or as suitable as the Township 30 site, which PERC finally settled upon. PERC turned down the Old Town site because of the proximity to nearby residents and the relatively smaller size. The state later rejected the Township 30 site for subjective reasons that were allowed under new landfill regulations the Department of Environmental Protection adopted at that time. Under the same criteria, I am certain the Old Town site would have been turned down as well.

The state had raised the bar so high for permitting a suitable site that it later prevented the state itself from permitting and building a landfill site for general purposes. Since nearly 200 towns depend on PERC finding a location for its ash, the state decided to reopen the so-called Sawyer landfill in Hampden. During the past 15 years that waste disposal site has grown higher and higher as the state continued to look for an alternative state owned landfill.

This is why the state was so interested in owning the Old Town landfill. It allowed Gov. John Baldacci and his chief economic advisor, Jack Cashman, the opportunity to do something to encourage Georgia-Pacific to rethink closing down their Old Town mill and at the same time gave the State Planning Office, which had been trying for 15 years to permit and construct a landfill, an opportunity to convert the Old Town site into a state-owned landfill. While the state has permitted a small site at Carpenter Ridge, if it ever is constructed, won’t solve the state’s needs.

The Old Town area is appreciative of Baldacci and Cashman’s efforts to keep our Old Town mill operating and realize we must be part of the total solution. We recognize that the Old Town landfill that was approved to assist G-P specifically must remain open and that the state needs to receive income from other users to make the effort financially feasible.

Providing space in our limited landfill capacity for PERC ash byproducts which takes the bulk of trash from our local region, including Old Town, makes sense and would provide much of the extra income needs to finance the purchase of the G-P site. Other sources of waste need to be screened very carefully to be certain that they are solving regional needs and are not going to use up valuable capacity and therefore compromise the Old Town landfill’s ability to service the G-P needs and our regional ash disposal needs for PERC.

The state has a responsibility to continue to search for landfill capacity in the south, central and northern portion of our state. Old Town is willing to do its share in solving a statewide problem but should not be expected to be the state’s sole solution for all the state’s waste needs.

Additionally, Old Town needs to be adequately compensated for taking on their share of solving a statewide problem while other communities have simply refused to do so and fought any effort to locate a landfill near them. We on the committee will do our best to see the state live up to its responsibility in locating additional sites. Other communities must also take on their share and become part of a reasonable solution to our waste problem and not fall back on the usual NIMBY – Not In My Back Yard mode.

Ralph Leonard, a resident of Old Town, is a member of the host committee for the Old Town landfill.