FRENCHVILLE – The board of directors of the Northern Aroostook Regional Incinerator Facility looked at future projects Thursday, before developing an annual budget this spring.

Included in the future projects are hot-topping, loading-ramp renovations, solid waste hauling contracts, purchase of cardboard trash containerss, and the possibility of the installation of an electrical generator.

“This was kind of a planning session,” Philip Levesque, facility administrator, said. “This gives board members a heads-up on projects that may come next year, or in the next couple of years.

“They are proposed budget items, depending on when we can afford to do them,” he said Friday afternoon. “We just need to do some financial planning.”

Levesque explained that hot top needs to be added to areas done a few years ago. The project could be divided in two phases, for different areas of the site. The total project is estimated to cost $24,000.

The facility has loading ramps for trailers that haul recyclables or solid waste from the facility. There is a problem when recyclable haulers with air-ride trailers use the facility.

A platform for the loading area would facilitate the handling of materials with forklifts. The platform would adjust to trailers of different heights.

The purchasing of NARIF-owned trailers equipped with scales was discussed. It was decided not to purchase trailers, but to allow benefits to haulers that use trailers equipped with weight scales.

In the coming months, NARIF will go out to bid for a four-year contract to haul solid waste materials from the Frenchville site to the disposal site in St. Anne, New Brunswick.

Directors agreed to purchase, in the next couple of years, seven containers to hold recyclable cardboard. The units would be installed at sites where recycling containers are now in place for plastics and newsprint. The cost is estimated at $1,000 per unit.

Also under discussion is a plan to purchase a generator so the entire plant could operate during periods of power failures. The facility now has generating capacity to allow the operation of cranes in the facility.

Levesque reported to his board that the Maine Department of Environmental Protection has paid its entire share of the landfill closure project that was done this year.

The landfill closure project cost $498,061. The DEP paid $373,546, leaving $124,515 to be paid by the owner-towns of the facility.

In the 10 months since the landfill has been closed, Levesque reported, water leaching at the site has decreased from 220,000 gallons per year to 30,000 gallons.

“This means the landfill was capped correctly,” Levesque said. “It is preventing rain and surface water from getting into the landfill cavity.

“The closed landfill is working correctly,” Levesque said.

The board voted to sign on with Maine Power Options for electrical energy. The group, formed by the Maine Bond Bank, is for communities and nonprofit agencies. Its electrical supplier is Wisconsin Power.

NARIF signed on until February 2002. It expects that savings will be from half a penny to 3 cents per kilowatt-hour. Levesque said they are also locked in to prices to protect against fuel cost increases.

In final action, the board elected officers for 2000-2001. They are Laurel Daigle of Fort Kent, chairman, Vernon Doucette of Madawaska, vice chairman, and Michael Ouellette of Frenchville, secretary-treasurer.