OLD TOWN – The number of heavy trash trucks traveling through the Bangor area to Juniper Ridge Landfill should not increase if draft plans to systematically close the Pine Tree Landfill in Hampden are put into place next spring, company officials are saying.

“It shouldn’t have any effect on [Juniper Ridge] at all,” Don Meagher, manager of planning and development for Casella Waste Systems Inc., which operates both landfills, said Wednesday. “At this point, all of our in-state customers are going to Juniper Ridge.”

The Hampden landfill closing idea, a five-page, written concept plan created by Hampden, Casella and state officials, would limit waste streams at Pine Tree to construction and demolition debris and incinerator ash next year and eventually would close the landfill entirely by 2010.

The draft concept was placed in meeting packets for town councilors Wednesday and will be a discussion item at Tuesday’s regular council meeting.

Heavy tractor-trailer trucks became a local hot-button issue with the creation of the state-owned and Casella-run Juniper Ridge, licensed in April 2005, and increased local enforcement of 80,000-pound federal highway weight limits. The death of a female pedestrian killed by a turning big rig in May on State Street in Bangor heightened tensions over the issue.

Community leaders around the state have expressed concern about heavy trucks traveling through their towns, but they think their hands are tied until federal regulations limiting truck weights are lifted, Gerry Palmer, Bangor city councilor, said Wednesday.

“It scares me to death,” he said. “We’ve already lost one person … and I’d hate to see us lose anyone else” because of the heavy trucks downtown.

Trucks weighing more than 80,000 pounds are prohibited from traveling on Interstate 95, including Interstate 395, north of Augusta.

Since Juniper Ridge is located west of I-95 in Old Town, and most trucks entering the facility exceed the highway weight limit, they are forced to use local roads.

The Bangor Area Comprehensive Transportation System advisory committee is so concerned that it is planning to evaluate the routes used by big trucks to see if they are appropriate, Jim Ring, Bangor city engineer, said Wednesday.

“We are going to be undertaking a truck route study in the near future and will certainly be looking at these issues,” he said.

Meagher said waste that goes to Hampden is, for the most part, out-of-state waste, which is banned at Juniper Ridge.

“Those [trucks] wouldn’t go to Old Town, under any set of circumstances, because it’s not permitted,” he said. “Old Town doesn’t take any out-of-state waste. The two [landfills] are really disconnected.

“I would say the traffic here [at Pine Tree] will change very little or not at all until the closure is completed,” he said.