MRC landfill proposal gets cool reception at Sangerville forum

By Mike Lange
Staff Writer

    SANGERVILLE — It was billed as an informational meeting for area town officials on a long-term solution to the rising cost of waste disposal for the 187 members of the Municipal Review Committee.

Observer photo/Mike Lange

    SPEAKING OUT — Peter Crockett of Argyle cites his objections to the proposed MRC landfill in his hometown during the Sept. 18 meeting at the Sangerville town office.

    But the meeting at the Sangerville community room on Sept. 18 not only attracted a large crowd of locals, but several people from the communities where MRC would like to build a new landfill.
    After a detailed explanation of MRC’s looming deadline to find an alternative place to dispose of its member communities’ trash, some residents of the Penobscot Indian Nation and the town of Argyle blasted the plan as environmentally unsound.
    At the start of the meeting, MRC Executive Director Greg Lounder recapped the history of his organization’s involvement with the Penobscot Energy Recovery Company since the Orrington waste-to-energy plant opened in 1988.
    PERC was troubled from the beginning, according to Lounder, since its performance was below expectations and the cost of operation exceeded projections. After PERC went through financial restructuring in 1991, MRC was formed so municipalities — which had already absorbed rising tipping fees — could share in any profits made from energy sales.
    By 1995, the year Lounder came aboard, things started to stabilize. MRC eventually owned 23 percent of PERC which gave the municipalities “a voice in all of PERC’s business decisions,” Lounder explained.
    However, PERC has had many majority owners “come and go over the years,” he conceded. And the current operator, USA Energy, has advised MRC that it doesn’t intend to keep the plant open beyond 2018.
    “Their original plan was to go to the state and ask for a subsidy to keep doing things the way they’ve always done them,” Lounder said. “Our view is that a long-term reliance on state subsidies is not a very stable, secure way to solve these problems at all.”
    Complicating the matter is that Maine municipalities, especially those with aggressive recycling programs, are sending less trash to PERC. So the plant has to import waste from out of state to keep the facility running.
    Earlier this year, MRC filed a notice of intent with the Department of Environmental Protection to build a regional facility which encompasses recycling and secure waste disposal in either Argyle or Greenbush. But Lounder said he wanted to dispel any rumors that MRC was going to “develop a system and force it on municipalities. We’ll do no such thing. The only way this project will succeed is if municipalities agree to a new waste disposal contract.”
    Nevertheless, some attendees like Penobscot Indian Nation tribal member Maria Girouard said that Argyle is not an acceptable location for a waste disposal site because it abuts tribal land. “We’re a federally-recognized tribe and our rights to hunt and fish are protected,” said Girouard. “This land you’re proposing (for the site) directly affects us (and) we’ve never been invited to one of these informational sessions or never been approached. We’ve heard it strictly through the grapevine.” She added that Argyle, as an unorganized township, “has no town government voice.”
    Lounder said that a lot of Girouard’s concerns will be addressed during the permitting process “over the next couple of years. We’re just not at that stage yet.”
    Dover-Foxcroft Selectman Gail D’Agostino asked Lounder whether any other sites were under consideration and whether the location was related to the route of the proposed east-west corridor. Lounder said no. “There has been no conversation between us and anyone connected to the east-west corridor,” he said.
    Sangerville Selectman Bill Rowe also said he had concerns about the 900-acre site in Argyle being close to a peat bog and subject to runoff, and also questioned how MRC accumulated $24 million in reserves. “My first thought when I heard about it is that it came out of my pocket,” Rowe said.
    But Lounder said he was proud of the fact that MRC was able to save enough cash “due to wise financial management” to deal with problems like the pending closure of PERC. “We’ve had conversation with member communities about this for over a decade,” he added.
    Peter Crockett of Argyle said that his community is “currently bisected by Route 95 and is also host to a pipeline which travels from Searsport to Presque Isle … I think hosting two infrastructure projects for the betterment of our neighbors is as much as any community should need to do.”
    He also cited concerns about runoff, noting that the Penobscot River is home to the Atlantic salmon and other fish on the Endangered Species list. He charged that the proposed landfill’s purpose would be “to house the waste of many communities who wish to keep their disposal costs cheap for themselves while they destroy the sanctity and health of our world in Argyle.”
    More information is posted at www.mrcmaine.org and a link to MRC’s proposal, public comments, responses and additional hearings is at www.maine.gov/dep.