HAMPDEN, Maine — The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has approved draft permits for a $69 million waste-to-energy plant in Hampden proposed by a consortium of towns, the Municipal Review Committee, and a Maryland company, Fiberight LLC.
The draft permits cover air emissions, solid waste processing, stormwater management and compliance with the Natural Resources Protection Act. The Department of Environmental Protection is accepting comments on the drafts until 5 p.m. Tuesday, after which the permits will be reviewed for final approval.
Meanwhile, the town of Hampden’s local review of the 144,000-square-foot plant — which is planned for a 90-acre parcel between Ammo Industrial Park, Interstate 95 and Coldbrook Road — is set to resume July 13.
Greg Lounder, the MRC’s executive director, called the permits “a key milestone in the completion of the new facility.” Lounder also said the permits should reassure communities that have committed to MRC to send trash to the new plant.
The MRC set a June 30 deadline for communities to sign contracts and be eligible to share in future profits of the Fiberight plant. The MRC has 187 members, which include individual communities and solid-waste cooperatives.
As of Friday, July 1, more than 97 members had contracted with MRC to send more than 98,000 tons of trash to the new facility annually. While it is only about two-thirds of MRC’s original goal of securing at least 150,000 tons of trash on an annual basis, company officials said Friday that it is enough to move forward, especially with other contracts pending.
The MRC has said the size of the Fiberight plant could be reduced from its planned annual capacity of 180,000 tons to 110,000 tons and still be financed, built and profitable.
The number of communities that ultimately sign up will determine the Fiberight plant size, Lounder said.
About 39 municipalities have not yet decided where to send their solid waste post-2018, according to a Bangor Daily News analysis, leaving about 30,648 tons up for grabs.
This includes municipalities such as Eddington, which likely will send its 873 annual tons of solid waste to Fiberight, according to town officials.
But other municipalities have decided against signing contracts with either MRC or the Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. and will send their solid waste elsewhere after 2018. Some coastal communities are choosing to send their waste to Portland firm ecomaine, and some in central Maine are signing deals with nearby landfills, such as in Norridgewock.
Other communities are still having deep discussions, such as Camden and Rockport, which are part of a five-town regional waste cooperative in which one town, Lincolnville, has already voted to go its own way to ecomaine.
Costs and convenience are largely driving these decisions. For example, Mars Hill in Aroostook County will decide later this year between sending its solid waste to Tri-Community Landfill in Fort Fairfield and another landfill in Presque Isle.
What makes either option more attractive than MRC or PERC is the lower transportation cost, according to Mars Hill Town Manager David Cyr.
The town pays $32 per ton to ship its waste to the incinerator in Orrington, which Cyr said he expects “will only increase in the long term.”
If Mars Hill goes with one of the nearby landfills, transportation cost would fall to an estimated $10 to $15 per ton, he said.
“If we were closer to Bangor, we would have pursued [Fiberight or PERC]. But when you do the math, the viability of going with a landfill closer to home makes more sense for us,” Cyr said.
In Hampden, which has voted to send its solid waste to Fiberight, the planning board has so far held four days of public hearings on the plant.
Concerns about an increase in truck traffic that would occur if the facility is built and the potential for odor have dominated public comment.
Concerns also have been raised about air emissions, although the Department of Environmental Protection’s draft permit for emissions calls the plant a “minor source” of emitted material.
Also part of the review are height, setback, traffic, stormwater and other standards for local approval for the project.
The project is a tough sell for some in Hampden because of the town’s rocky history with solid waste projects.
The town once was the final destination for the region’s trash and waste from outside Maine. The former Pine Tree Landfill operated for 35 years before it stopped accepting waste in June 2010.
Called the Sawyer Environmental Recovery Facility when it opened in 1975, the Hampden landfill was unlined and its emissions were unregulated.
Neighbors complained about the landfill stench, trash fires, environmental damage and heavy truck traffic. Other concerns included allowing out-of-state waste to be dumped in Hampden, which the MRC said will not occur at the proposed Hampden facility.
In the 1980s and 1990s, when shifts in state policy resulted in the closure of hundreds of small municipal landfills, the need for larger facilities such as Pine Tree grew.
Casella Waste Systems bought the facility in 1996. The state approved an expansion of the landfill in 1998, but the town said it violated zoning laws.
Casella sued the town, a case that made it all the way to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court and resulted in a reversal of the town’s decision.
When Casella tried to expand again in 2005, the Department of Environmental Protection denied the request, thanks in part to the work of the Hampden Citizens’ Coalition, which helped negotiate a deal to close the landfill.
The former landfill since has been converted to a $10 million gas-to-energy extraction facility — the first of its kind in Maine — consisting of a network of wells and pipes that collects methane gas produced by decomposing waste.
Comments about the three draft DEP permits are due by 5 p.m. Tuesday and can be sent to project manager Julie Churchill by email at julie.m.churchill@maine.gov.
BDN writer Christopher Burns contributed writing and research to this report.