Casella’s smoke screen

Jan. 21 marked the third anniversary of the “public informational meeting” in Old Town that kicked off Maine’s current round of solid-waste controversy. Two recent BDN editorials show a growing awareness that our basic waste-related problem is opening Maine to dumping from away.

The Jan. 13 Op-Ed by Casella’s Don Meagher continues a pattern of shifting rationales for importing trash. In an earlier bit of political theater, Meagher showed an orange to the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee, asking if we would now be required to send the peels back home to Florida.

His latest argument, in favor of importing debris waste as an energy alternative, obscures the fact that steep increases in landfilling provide Casella with the cash flow that is the heart of the business. They are in the regional waste-disposal business, not the renewable energy business. Fueling boilers is a smoke screen to justify Casella’s expanded landfill operations.

At the Old Town meeting we were surprised when state agency staff turned to Casella’s lawyer for an explanation of legislation enabling the landfill. Its history shows the source of Casella’s expertise: They wrote the law.

An important question, still unanswered, was raised by the recent Blue Ribbon Commission on Solid Waste: Who was behind the state’s assurance to bidders (Casella’s was the only bid) that the state “does not now, nor intend to, impose any restrictions on the use of out-of-state generated/provided fuel supply” for the boiler at the former G.P. mill? There still is no public accountability for ending 15 years of established solid-waste policy.

Maine can cap this trash flow. Concerned readers should suggest that their legislators say no to trash imports by freezing current permit applications and establishing effective limits on the processing of debris fuel in Maine.

Paul Schroeder

Orono