The town landfill has long been a thorny issue for the Somerset County town of Hartland. Next month, residents will help decide the decades-old landfill’s fate in a referendum.
Hartland town officials say the best way to fund the landfill’s eventual closure is to expand it in the interim. While they say residents are on their side, a vocal opposition has formed to lobby for a “no” vote. They claim that the landfill is hurting the town’s environment and believe closing it, though costly, is the right course of action.
No matter the outcome, the April 6 referendum on the landfill’s future is bound to have long-term consequences for Hartland, a town of about 1,600 about a half-hour northeast of Skowhegan. The town is perhaps most familiar to Mainers outside of it for its major employer, a leather tannery that closed last year after orders dropped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Before it closed, the landfill had accepted a substantial amount of waste from the tannery.
A “yes” vote on the referendum would approve a plan for the town to borrow $3.5 million to expand the landfill by 5.3 acres and acquire a slow-speed shredder, among other provisions.
Revenue from the expanded landfill would cover the cost of the expansion, according to town officials. It will also cover the assorted costs, including environmental monitoring, that will be necessary when the town closes the landfill in about 20 years.
The plan could bring more than $29 million in revenue to the town at the current rate at which waste comes into the landfill, Town Manager Chris Littlefield said.
A “no” vote would close the landfill once it fills up around October 2021, leading to about $3.5 million over 30 years, according to Littlefield. A reserve account the town opened a few years ago to cover landfill closure costs doesn’t have nearly enough money to cover that amount. Instead, Littlefield said, the town would need to add $3.87 for every $1,000 in property value to its tax rate for the next 30 years. Hartland’s current tax rate is $22.20 for every $1,000 in property.
The current landfill is the second of two in the town after the first one closed in 1990, and the town has owned and operated it under a Maine Department of Environmental Protection license for more than three decades. It is located on the west side of Route 43 on Pleasant Street.
The landfill brings in sludge from Hartland’s wastewater treatment plant but is also authorized to take sewage sludge from other towns, paper mill sludge, ash and demolition debris, non-hazardous contaminated soils, some materials with asbestos, wood waste and automotive shredder residue.
The expanded landfill would initially accept all of the same material. However, Littlefield said, the town would consider other wastes if the opportunity presented itself in the future.
The Department of Environmental Protection has put a number of restrictions on the waste Hartland’s landfill can accept. In 2016, it denied a request from Hartland to accept out-of-state sewage sludge, and it has required that any asbestos material the town accepts be non-friable — meaning that it won’t crumble under hand pressure.
Representative samples are taken before the town accepts new waste streams to ensure they aren’t hazardous. Yet the new materials the landfill has accepted in recent years concern those opposed to the landfill’s expansion.
The Hartland Environmental Advisory Team began after the Department of Environmental Protection authorized Hartland to take out-of-town waste in 2015, member Debbie Cooper said.
One sticking point for many opposed to the landfill expansion is the odor. Cooper said she and other residents who live near the site could smell it, especially during the summer.
“If you believe that money is more important than people’s health and the environment, then they’ll probably vote to keep it open,” Cooper said. “Why don’t we just close it now and be done with it?”
Littlefield said the landfill did sometimes give off odors, but that the town had worked to reduce the bad smells by quickly burying smelly material and using deodorizers.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has looked into odor complaints and not found them beyond the property of the landfill itself, spokesperson David Madore said. He said there had not been any violations of environmental laws or rules at the landfill in the past decade.
In June 2019, Hartland residents voted 128-45 to reject a proposal to close the landfill immediately. Voters also supported adding more capacity to fund a future closure. The April 6 referendum asks voters whether they approve the specific expansion plans the town has since developed.
Cooper said she hopes the tannery’s closure since that June 2019 vote could change residents’ minds, as the landfill’s importance to the tannery had long been used as an argument to keep it open.
Residents will be able to vote in a referendum on expanding the landfill at the Hartland Irving Tanning Community Center on April 6, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Absentee ballots are also available.