Old Town, Bangor sites make ‘Dirty Dozen’ list

BANGOR – Two central Maine sites Tuesday were given the dubious honor of a spot on the Toxic Action Center’s list of the dozen sites in New England that pose the greatest avoidable danger to public health.

Griffin Park, a Bangor apartment complex, and the West Old Town Landfill, joined sites throughout the region on the eighth annual “Dirty Dozen” list. The sites are deemed hazardous because their environmental problems are not being solved with “aggressive” action either by the polluters or by state and federal environmental officials, explained Will Everitt, the state field director for Toxics Action Center.

“This is a list that nobody wants to be on,” Everitt said during a press conference Tuesday morning at Griffin Park.

The regional environmental group developed the mock awards in hopes of “shining a spotlight” on pollution problems in residential areas, and spurring officials to action.

In the past, spots on the list killed a proposal to build an elementary school atop a hazardous waste dump in Massachusetts, and resulted in a landfill just north of Boston being placed on the federal Superfund list for toxic sites, Everitt said.

A committee of scientists and environmentalists from throughout New England, including Jon Hinck of the Natural Resources Council of Maine and Matthew Davis of Environment Maine, met to select this year’s dirty dozen from a list of public nominations after extensive discussion.

“There’s a lot of competition. There are a lot of bad sites out there,” Davis said.

Yet both Maine sites stood out as examples of places where local people are struggling to draw attention to a serious environmental problem that could be solved with a little more effort by those in power , he said.

At Griffin Park, a city-owned apartment complex, residents have complained of air and water pollution as a result of jet exhaust and runoff from de-icing solutions used at Bangor International Airport and the Maine Air National Guard base.

Ann Birmingham and her neighbors have suffered headaches and respiratory problems, while smelling chemicals and constantly cleaning the soot from their homes, she said.

“Sometimes, it’s almost like an engine has been idling in my kitchen,” she said Tuesday. “We need answers [about] what we’re breathing.”

“Things have gotten so bad and so little action has been taken that the residents have had to take it into their own hands,” Everitt said.

The city has worked with the airport and the National Guard to reroute some of their runoff to the city sewers. And the state has secured federal funds for a long-term health study.

But progress has slowed and communication has broken down, said residents, who continue to suspect that pollutants in their homes and yards are to blame for their health problems.

The site is a good example of the problems with polluted urban streams that are appearing nationwide, and of what citizen groups can accomplish, Davis said.

“This is a partial success story, with a lot more work to be done,” he said.

A few miles north in Old Town, neighbors of a dump formerly owned by Georgia-Pacific have fought a state deal to purchase the landfill, and all the liability that accompanies it, while contracting operation of the facility to for-profit Casella Waste Systems. The plan, approved by state environmental officials with the full support of Gov. John Baldacci, includes expanding the landfill so it can accept municipal waste.

Everitt agreed with neighbors in characterizing the plan as a “dirty back-room deal,” in which an already leaking landfill is being given the state stamp of approval to accept potentially dangerous waste.

For Davis and other committee members, drawing attention to the controversial deal vividly illustrates the challenges of opposing a multimillion-dollar deal on environmental grounds.

“When you have state representatives saying they didn’t know what they were voting for, … when you have citizens decrying the outcome, … that makes it pretty poignant,” he said.

In the past, other Maine sites, including the former HoltraChem chemical plant in Orrington, Dragon Cement Co. in Thomaston, and the Pine Tree Landfill in Hampden, have made appearances on the “Dirty Dozen” list.

For more information, visit www.toxicsaction.org.