New transfer station lock irks businesses

GREENVILLE – A change in the lock at the Lily Bay transfer station apparently irked some area business owners, and Piscataquis County commissioners heard about it during a meeting this week.

Sean Bolen, the transfer station’s caretaker, recently changed the lock to the facility, making keys held by some property owners useless for after-hours deposits.

Casey LaCasce of Spencer Bay and other business owners in the region have been allowed copies of the key so they could use the facility at will.

But the keys multiplied to the point the facility was misused, according to Bolen.

“There’s been way too many [keys] out there,” Bolen told the commissioners at their meeting Tuesday in Greenville.

Garbage may now be left only when the facility is staffed from noon to 4 p.m. Tuesdays and Fridays, and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays.

But those hours are not sufficient for LaCasce. “I’ve got a problem. I’ve got a load of garbage every day and I’ve got to get rid of it,” he said Tuesday.

LaCasce said he operates 70 camp sites and 10 cabins in the summer, and that generates more than a load of garbage a day. “I can’t hold it up to camp,” he said.

“We have a record of having a good, clean dump, but it’s getting worse,” Commissioner Tony Bartley of Greenville said Tuesday. He said if the transfer station continued to be misused, the commissioners would have to permanently close it. Then residents would have to haul their garbage to Greenville.

Commissioner Fred Trask agreed with Bartley. “Control is what we have to have,” he said, before the board voted to support Bolen’s action.

A petition signed by about 40 Frenchtown property owners who asked for winter road maintenance on six miles of county-owned road was discussed Tuesday. The fiscal year for the Unorganized Territory begins in July, and the budget already has been adopted, about a dozen residents were told.

The estimated cost for the road work will be about $35,000. About 100 camps are located on the six miles of road, commissioners were told.

“You have enough people up there to justify it,” Commissioner Tom Lizotte said. The request will be taken up during the next budget cycle.