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The University of Maine’s proposed deal with a Vermont-based company to provide the campus with Old Town landfill gas for use as fuel has led to criticism from a local citizen group that says the university is enabling the company to exploit a legal loophole.
The Maine Campus reported Sept. 20 (University Steam Plant likely to convert to Old Town landfill gas; contract pending) that UMaine has been given permission by the University of Maine System board of trustees to end negotiations on an unfinalized 20-year contract with Casella Waste Systems Inc.
According to a preliminary version of the contract between UMaine and Casella, the company would construct a seven-mile pipeline from the state-owned and Casella-operated Juniper Ridge Landfill in Old Town to the Steam Plant at no cost to the university. The company would also pay for UMaine’s upgrades to the Steam Plant – currently burning fossil fuel – so it can burn methane-rich landfill gas. The city of Old Town will receive 5 percent of landfill gas sales to the university.
Orono resident Paul Schroeder is a member of the Trash Tracking Network, a group of about a dozen people who have opposed the landfill since its inception in 2004. He sees the deal as a continuation of Casella’s business model.
“On basis of their contract with the university, they’re going to leverage that thing into bringing in sludge and other kinds of stuff like that from other states as well as probably from Canada,” Schroeder said. “This is all part of a corporate strategy to bring in out of state waste and fill it into the landfill.”
Rep. Bob Duchesne, D-Hudson, represents District 13 – which includes Alton, the town of just over 800 that borders Old Town and shares the landfill. He agrees that Casella’s past in Old Town would lend credence to Schroeder’s argument.
“The solid waste marketplace in New England is southern New England,” he said. “That’s where the waste is. You make your money by getting your hands on as much of that as possible and finding places to get rid of it. Unfortunately, northern New England is where Casella tends to get rid of southern New England trash.”
Duchesne said he has filed a number of bills in the Legislature to change statutes, but they have failed to gain traction because other legislators do not understand the community impact of Juniper Ridge.
“Most people really don’t understand it in the Legislature. It’s really been an educational battle more than it has been a policy battle. The other legislators haven’t really caught on to it yet,” he said.
Duchesne, in the middle of campaigning for re-election, said many of his constituents echo issues with the landfill and the university deal.
“The big concern isn’t really that they’re going to be converting this energy into a usable purpose. The big concern is that the pipeline will then justify the landfill that they opposed in the first place,” he said.
Juniper Ridge is the only state-owned landfill in Maine. A legislative resolve was established in 2003 to allow for the purchase of the landfill formerly owned by Georgia-Pacific, a paper company that left an Old Town tissue mill that year. Casella won the bid to operate the facility at a price of $26 million for a 30-year contract, assuming all financial obligations for the landfill.
According to a Maine Department of Environmental Protection draft denial cited by the Bangor Daily News in January, Juniper Ridge was denied the opportunity to expand three times because “delaying the development of an expansion at the Juniper Ridge Landfill will not result in a gap in local, regional or state waste landfilling needs.” Duchesne said another “expansion battle” is likely to happen again within the next two years.
“If the argument [from Casella] becomes, ‘Well, we’re going to need this gas to fuel the university,’ that’s the tail wagging the dog, and opponents really hate that,” he said.
The landfill, established in 2004, was designed for in-state waste only, accepting ash, construction and demolition debris (CDD) from municipalities and “special wastes” from business and industry. In 2006, water was introduced to the landfill, which led to the production of landfill gas.
The lack of a specific legal definition of “in-state waste” has left Casella the opportunity to ship waste into Maine to process it. After that processing period, out-of-state waste processed in Maine can be defined as in-state waste, eligible for deposit in Juniper Ridge.
Schroeder referenced the background of the facility’s authorization as a reason to question the university deal.
“This was never set up to be a gas generator – it was set up to be a disposal place for Maine’s municipal solid waste,” Schroeder said. “I think the university, to a certain extent, is just walking in on Casella’s business plan.”
The move is expected to save UMaine millions of dollars in fuel costs. A university press release said the campus’ carbon footprint would decrease by 40 percent if the Steam Plant were powered by landfill gas instead of fossil fuels — equivalent to 5,700 fewer cars on campus. The pipeline has not yet gone through a permitting process with the state.
Ed Spencer, an Old Town resident and member of the Trash Trackers Network, said Old Town City Manager Peggy Daigle has been largely unresponsive to Freedom of Access Law requests for information about meetings with state and Casella officials about the implementation of the university plan.
He said he is giving Daigle time to respond to the June requests because city offices have recently been relocated, but said if he does not receive answers by November, he will take legal action.
“I don’t think they took our request for information very seriously,” Spencer said. “Peggy Daigle is hired by the taxpayers to serve our best interests and if she’s out meeting in Augusta with these entities and she won’t even say who they are, I don’t think she’s working in our best interests.”
According to Daigle, the requests have not been granted yet because the city offices have been temporarily relocated to the Old Town Municipal Airport. When the normal offices on Main Street re-open, she said Spencer and fellow group member Chuck Leitheiser will receive the information.
Casella operates a number of Maine facilities, including the Pine Tree Landfill in Hampden, the Maine Energy Recovery Company (MERC) in Biddeford, and the Penobscot Energy Recovery Company (PERC) in Orrington.
Biddeford Mayor Joanne Twomey is an outspoken critic of Casella after a long period of battles with the company in her city. According to The Sun Chronicle, Casella sued the city earlier this month in York County Superior Court over zoning laws it saw as only applying to its business. She said she has many environmental objections to the university’s plan to burn landfill gas.
“How did the landfill gas get there to begin with? How do we continue to generate trash to dump in landfills so that we can continue to have gas?” Twomey said. “The planet’s finite. They’re stuffing stuff in the ground that could have been reused for years.”
Twomey said UMaine’s embrace of a technology may be cheaper in the short-term, but they should be looking for truly renewable power sources.
“The university — I’m sorry. I just don’t think they’re very intelligent,” Twomey said. “They don’t go past their nose. It’s always short-term. It’s always quick-fix.”
Duchesne said he supports “a beneficial re-use of the gas” but would rather see the trash incinerated like at MERC and PERC and turned to electricity than see the gas from it redirected. Although he would rather embrace cleaner forms of power, he said landfill gas is “greener than importing oil from Saudi Arabia.”
“The problem I have from a policy point of view is there is a better way to do it than this pipeline system. That is — we’re supposed to prevent the trash as much as possible and we’re not really following our hierarchy the way we should.”
Spencer said he would understand the university’s plan if it did indeed save money but hasn’t seen the benefits to justify the source of the power.
“Garbage is not green energy. Garbage is not renewable energy. The goal of our society is to produce less waste, less garbage, every year from now until we get to a zero-waste situation. This would encourage contrary behavior,” he said.
This is the first landfill gas to heating fuel plan proposed in Maine’s history. Duchesne said the traditional way of processing landfill gas — converting it by incineration to electricity — may be costlier than piping it to UMaine. He said odorous sulfur is hard to filter out from CDD-produced landfill gas.
“I think they’re looking at this as a cheaper way to get rid of their gas and a better investment in the long run than the usual way of just converting it to electricity,” he said. “Corporations behave a certain way and always in their best interests. This looks like their best interests.”
Schroeder and Spencer said UMaine should examine and present its cost-analysis findings so the community can see if the Casella plan will save the university a substantial amount of money. After many requests, they say they have not been presented with convincing evidence.
“I think it’d be great if we could have some kind of a forum where Casella could sort of lay out their plans in public and invite questions and comments because the university community here – it’s supposed to be about education,” Spencer said.
Schroeder said the university’s carbon footprint could be reduced, but some of it may just be shifting to other places because of the hauling of waste around New England.
“Does the university’s calculus for greenhouse emissions actually count in the long-distance hauling that has to be done to haul garbage into this place?” he said.
Twomey said she does not believe UMaine researched this enough to implement it anytime soon.
“It isn’t green energy. It sounds sexy. The university can pat themselves on the back,” she said. “Where are the environmentalists at the University of Maine?”
