Category: MERC/Solid Waste

Fear and loathing in Biddeford

~ Randy Seaver ~ 8 Comments

There are two basic ways in which human beings make decisions. Either we act based on our fears, or we respond to our visions and dreams by planning — if only in incremental steps — for our future.

The Maine Energy Recovery Company’s waste-to-energy facility occupies an 8-acre site on the banks of the Saco River in downtown Biddeford.

For more than three decades, those of us who live in Biddeford have wrestled with the dilemma of having a trash-to-energy incinerator located smack dab in the middle of our downtown.

In retrospect, it certainly would appear the decision to locate the Maine Energy Recovery Company on the banks of the Saco River was a short-sighted, reactionary move based on short-term objectives. But at the time, it seemed like a great opportunity, and few people remember that both Biddeford and Saco were competing to have the incinerator located in their community.

Today, we have the luxury of 20-20 hindsight, not to mention the harsh realization that the decision made 30 years ago was executed without the benefit of all the anecdotal knowledge and hard data that comes with burning trash in the midst of an area striving for economic redevelopment.

It makes sense that I am spending so much time lately looking back at 1982. It was a pivotal time in my life. In June, I graduated from high school and it was exactly 30 years ago today — on July 2 — that I reported to Lackland Air Force Base for my first day of basic training.

When I left Saco, there was no MERC….when I returned home many weeks later, I was greeted by the unmistakable presence of a new stack looming over the horizon of my hometown. It was designed by General Electric and our downtown was all but abandoned, lost in the rush of interstate expansion and a sprawling retail mall located just 15 minutes up the road.

Some downtown businesses — Reilly’s Bakery, Youlands and others — survived, but many others did not. Eli the Cobbler, Murphy’s Music and McKenney & Heard are today nothing more than faint and fond memories. The same goes for Butler’s, Woolworth’s, the Children’s Shop, Polakewich’s, Nichol’s….that list is endless.

MERC did not kill downtown Biddeford, but it also didn’t provide much relief for a patient that was already on life support.

Things change…it is the only constant; and today Biddeford is a much different community than it was in 1982.

I have had my fill of looking back, of yanking out the scrapbooks of my subconscious memory. I am also weary of the fear and the constant worry of an uncertain financial future that seems to be the fodder for cable news and talk radio hosts.

I was working as the editor of the Courier when Biddeford Blankets announced its abrupt closing. I remember going down there to cover the story, and I will never forget the experience of speaking with the hundreds of suddenly displaced employees who were grappling with the unpleasant reality of an unknown future.

They stood in the parking lot, huddled in small groups, backs against the biting winds of an early winter. They hugged one another, glanced backward at the buildings where they toiled and slowly made their way home.

Biddeford was shifting again. It wasn’t much longer before the WestPoint mill was also shuttered.

Looking at those brick mill buildings, those icons of my hometown’s past, it was hard — if not impossible — back then to imagine what life would be like without those places. But Biddeford, especially its people, are strong and resilient.

The city survived, and new life began creeping back to those mills.

So, yes…I am weary of the rear view mirror and the fears of the unknown. I want to stop looking back and begin looking forward.

Where will Biddeford be 10, 20 or even 30 years from now? What unimagined potential lies along the river’s banks? Can I see this city the way it was viewed by the people who settled here more than 300 years ago?

Am I a man of vision or fear? Thirty years from now, when my son is 47, will he respect the decision his father made?

The bottom line: are we better with or without a trash incinerator in the middle of our downtown? Are we tired of the problem? Are we willing to take the steps needed to solve that problem?

Tomorrow evening (July 3), we will all have the opportunity to weigh in about a proposal crafted by the city of Biddeford and MERC’s owners to finally close the facility. It is a complex proposition, and I invite you and everyone else to learn more about the plan, its benefits… and yes, its consequences.

You can read, print and download all the documents by visiting the city’s website; and you can also find all those documents and much more information, including Frequently Asked Questions and recent media stories about the plan by visiting a site set up by the Biddeford-Saco Chamber of Commerce by clicking this link: closemercplan.org

I hope to see you at City Theater on Tuesday night. Regardless of how you feel about the proposal, your voice matters. And I hope you will join me in looking forward without fear.

Disclosure Notice: I am a resident of Biddeford, but I also provide professional consulting services to Casella Waste Systems, the company that owns and operates MERC.

Solid Waste /MERC

~ Randy Seaver ~ Leave a comment

The Maine Energy Recovery Company’s waste-to-energy incinerator in downtown Biddeford dominated the political landscape of the Biddeford-Saco region for nearly three decades.

The plant was designed by General Electric. It was initially considered as a preferred alternative for a region that was forced to close its municipal landfill. City leaders in both Biddeford and Saco fought to have the plant and its potential tax revenue located in their respective community.

Finally closed…the Maine Energy Recovery Company’s controversial waste-to-energy incinerator in the middle of downtown Biddeford.

But even before burning the first bag of trash, MERC became one of the city’s most contentious policy issues, and it ultimately had a profound impact on the city’s reputation and the region’s hopes for economic revitalization.

In 2004, while serving as the editor of the Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier, I launched a project to explore every facet of MERC’s presence, including its history, operations and its role as part of Maine’s solid waste infrastructure.

The MERC: In Focus series featured no less than 19 weekly installments, including an in-depth look at Maine’s solid waste policies and the implications of a throw-away culture. Selected installment of that series can be viewed by clicking on the links below.

Additional news and commentary about the MERC facility can be found by using the Category tab.

How Did It Get Here? | MERC’s early history

A Deal Gone Bad | A Regional Public Policy Challenge

Vacationland or Trash-land? | How MERC impacts Maine’s solid waste landscape

MERC: How Did It Get Here?

~ Randy Seaver ~ 1 Comment

In the early 1990s, the city of Biddeford adopted a new motto. The slogan “A proud city rising where the water falls” was designed to highlight both the city’s history and its geographical significance. A logo attached to the motto features the Saco River’s cascading falls and a skyline peppered with architectural icons, including smokestacks and a church steeple.

But the 244-foot concrete tower that dominates the city’s skyline today is hardly something that the people in Biddeford are “proud” of.

Inescapable in both its magnitude and centerpiece location, that stack — which looms over the river’s banks — is a painful reminder that downtown Biddeford is also home to a troubled and controversial trash incinerator.

Many say that the presence of the Maine Energy Recovery Company in the heart of downtown Biddeford has — at the very least — hindered revitalization efforts in both Biddeford and Saco, MERC’s host communities.

Indeed, MERC’s downtown presence is hard to miss. Whether it’s odor complaints or the increasing frequency of trash trucks rattling along Lincoln Street, Biddeford especially has been forced to contend with the long-term effects of what has often been described as a questionable decision at best, prompting the Maine Sunday Telegram to describe the city as “Trashtown, USA” in an April 2000 feature story about the waste-to-energy plant.

Today, even company officials concede that the plant should not have been sited in the center of Biddeford and Saco’s downtown area.

Then how and why did it get there?

To answer those questions, one has to travel back in time to the early 1980s, when both cities were facing increasing pressure about their contaminated landfills. Some people have suggested a range of conspiracy theories, saying there was collusion between former city officials and company representatives.

Others say city officials moved too quickly on the proposal and did not do enough to seek public input. And still others blame the media for being asleep at the proverbial wheel, which fostered an atmosphere of apathy.

There is no evidence available to suggest a conspiracy, and it is much more likely that a long series of miscalculations by both city and company officials led to the decision to place MERC where it stands today.

A problem to solve

In 1982, the cities of Biddeford and Saco began advertising for a company to step in and handle the cities’ trash through incineration. Landfills were problematic and facing increased scrutiny from both state and federal officials. Four potential sites were initially considered after suggestions were offered by TEAC Associates, the cities’ paid consultants.

The four sites included Saco’s industrial park, located off North Street, Biddeford’s industrial park on Rte. 111, Saco Island (where the former NKL Tanning was located and is today a set of residential and business condominiums) and a Lincoln Street lot, near Elm Street in Biddeford where the plant sits today.

The site selection factors also contained a list of engineering and performance requirements.

  • Inexpensive cooling would require that the plant be built near a large source of water. A plan to sell excess steam would mean that it would also need to be located close to large businesses that would likely want to purchase large amounts of steam.
  • The plant also had to be near a Central Maine Power Company substation so that MERC’s other byproduct — electricity — could be transferred easily.
  • Most importantly, however, the land had to be available.

In the early 1980s, many people had all but given up on downtown Biddeford. The expansion of the Maine Mall in South Portland had shifted the retail trade, leaving downtown with a only a handful of small shops, city services and a complex of declining manufacturing operations. There were also plenty of “For Lease or Sale” signs.

Early in the site selection process, Biddeford and Saco were competing for the location, with both cities setting sights on the eventual property tax benefits.

As the process wore on, engineers concluded that potential steam customers (Southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford and Saco Defense in Saco) near the two industrial parks would likely not need as much steam as the incinerator would produce.

Other factors, including the location of existing rail lines, the character of Biddeford’s downtown manufacturing culture and an available source of cheap steam for nearby aging mills that were facing increased global competition, all seemed to point to downtown Biddeford.

But Saco City Councilor Eric Cote, who was then his city’s mayor, later told reporters that he never felt obligated to any particular site, saying that neither city council ever voted to approve one site over another.

The consultants, reportedly, had the backing of both city councils and the six-member site selection committee, which included both mayors, economic development directors and city councilors.

In March 1983, Kuhr Technologies Incorporated (KTI) was picked to build the plant. KTI hired General Electric to design and build what was then considered a cutting-edge facility that could turn trash into electricity.

A complicated tax sharing formula was agreed upon that would give Biddeford the larger share of the company’s property taxes to offset increased costs.

Furthermore, the plant and its financial backers, including the Bank of Tokyo, relied upon Biddeford’s bond rating capacity. Saco, which had just gone through a tax cap and a default on prior bond obligations, was not considered financially stable enough by the company and its lenders.

Within 30 days of selecting a site for the plant, NKL Tanning went out of business and its building was later transformed into residential and commercial condominiums. The host communities later agreed to increase the size of the plant and its capacity (from 100 to 700 tons per day) in order to benefit from what were then the lowest tipping fees on record, roughly $4 per ton of waste handled.

Several months later, in the summer of 1984, Plato Truman, a perennial political candidate and activist, began circulating a petition that called for a citywide referendum on the plant’s location. Truman owned a food wholesaling company that was located near the proposed incinerator.

Although Truman collected more than 800 signatures, nothing happened when he presented them to former Biddeford Mayor Robert Farley during a city council meeting.

Farley reportedly tossed the signatures into a trash can. In subsequent interviews with reporters from both the Journal Tribune and the Courier, Farley said the petition signatures were essentially worthless because the city had already signed contracts with the company.

KTI had reportedly invested millions of dollars in site preparation work and Farley expressed concerns about possible lawsuits if the city tried to pull out of the deal.

Company officials from both KTI and General Electric assured city officials that the new plant would be a “state-of-the-art” facility that would not produce odor or noise.

In December 1984, the Biddeford Planning Board rejected MERC’s proposed 244-foot ventilation stack because it exceeded height restrictions. Within days, the Biddeford City Council voted to override that decision.

Immediate problems

The Maine Energy plant first fired up its boilers during a shakedown cruise of sorts in April 1987, according to Saco Mayor Mark Johnston. Five months later, in September, the company began accepting trash from its member communities.

In less than 30 days, however, something went dramatically wrong, and large plumes of ash sporadically spewed forth from the giant stack that was emblazoned with large black letters, MERC.

That ash prompted Joanne Twomey, a former Biddeford city councilor and current state representative, into action.

Twomey began collecting ash samples and demanded that those samples be analyzed by state environmental officials. Her requests fell upon deaf ears at Biddeford City Hall. But two years before he was elected as Saco’s mayor, Johnston joined forces with Twomey and the two convinced the Saco City Council to pay for the analysis, which eventually brought a large fine against the company.

“The cities never got a dime of that money,” Johnston said. “But it was significant because it was the first proof we had that something was wrong over there.”

In previous interviews with the Courier, Twomey said she never thought twice about opposing the plant’s operations and location.

“There were many, many people opposed to MERC,” she said. “But you have to remember that it wasn’t popular to speak out back then, people looked at us like we were crazy. But that’s not mother’s milk they’re making in there.”

Richard Rhames, another well-known political activist in Biddeford, said in previous interviews that his opposition to the plant started later because he was burned out from opposing the city’s plan to expand its airport in the mid-1980s.

Rhames said he joined forces with MERC critics in the latter part of the 1980s, once the plant was operating and the Maine Peoples Alliance had organized a chapter in Biddeford to focus on the plant and its potentially harmful emissions.

“Back then, my son was a student at St. Mary’s, and I would drive across the bridge on Elm Street and see plumes of black smoke coming out of that stack,” Rhames said. “Today, the smoke is white, but it still has the same stuff in it.”

Rhames said he and others organized around health concerns related to the facility. “There was virtually no interest in the problems with MERC from the political class back then,” Rhames said. “It was very frustrating in those days. We were labeled as emotional and hysterical people. The company and business community used the entire lexicon of vernacular in dismissing our concerns. They said the plant was state-of-the-art.”

Financial woes

But if environmental concerns didn’t catch political leaders’ attention back then, financial problems certainly did. KTI fired General Electric and faulted the company with its plant design problems.

In 1989, Johnston was first elected as Saco’s mayor. Within days of taking office, Johnston convinced his city council to take legal action against KTI. The city filed suit because the company was automatically increasing the city’s tipping fees. Johnston says he was also worried about health problems, even after the ash spills stopped happening.

An out-of-court settlement resulted in General Electric willing to pay the two cities $1.6 million; KTI agreed to pay $4 million, Johnston said.

Saco immediately began seeking waste disposal alternatives, including facilities in Presque Isle, Bethlehem, N.H. and Regional Waste Systems in Portland, another trash incinerator.

The result, Johnston said, was painful and not economically viable. Any other option would cost the city a minimum of $100 per ton for disposal. At about the same time, KTI officials approached Johnston and Biddeford Mayor Bonita (Belanger) Pothier.

‘Dealing with the devil’

The company was facing financial woes and was seeking bankruptcy protection, Johnston said. Furthermore, KTI hired a Washington, D.C.-based attorney to determine if it could get out of its then three-year contract with its member communities.

“It was not an easy negotiation,” Johnston said. “But we had no real alternatives back then. I held my nose and made a deal with the devil. A lot of people accuse me of being the father of MERC, but there was no wiggle room. We soon learned they were not bluffing.”

In 1990, Johnston and Pothier entered into negotiations with KTI. The result was a 17-year extension of the existing three-year contract and an agreement for the cities to pay a significantly increased set of tipping fees.

In exchange, KTI offered the two cities a clause that would entitle them to a 20 percent share of the company if it were ever sold. Furthermore, the company was obligated to report any changes in its financial status and agreed to make investments in its operation to minimize noise and odor complaints.

For the next five years, Johnston said, the cities and the company enjoyed a “honeymoon.” The company even agreed to Johnston’s request to remove its acronym from the stack.

“Most communities have a water tower that reads ‘welcome to so and so,” Johnston said. “In my city, we had a stack that read MERC. It costs them a lot to sand-blast it off. I thought that was a good gesture and something they should do to acknowledge us and our concerns.”

But in June 1997, Ted Hill, then KTI’s president, called the mayors of Biddeford and Saco, James Grattelo and Mark Johnston, in for a meeting.

The honeymoon was over, and some bigger battles were brewing on the horizon.

Deal Gone Bad

~ Randy Seaver ~ 1 Comment

Four years ago, the owners of the Maine Energy Recovery Company told city officials they would never consider relocating their trash incinerator facility out of downtown Biddeford.

Within the last two years, that message has drastically changed.

The turnaround is likely the result of continuing closed-door negotiations between company officials and city officials from both Biddeford and Saco, not to mention increasing public opposition to both the plant’s location and operation.

The negotiations began roughly two years ago, shortly after both cities filed separate lawsuits against the company. Both sides are reportedly hoping to avoid excessive legal expenses and an unpredictable court decision. The case is still pending in York County Superior Court.

The cities’ civil lawsuits stem from the 1999 acquisition of Maine Energy by Casella Waste Systems, one of the country’s largest waste handling companies, headquartered in Rutland Vermont.

This week, we will continue to examine the history of events that led us to where we are today in relation to the controversial trash-to-energy company.

After renegotiating a new contract with its so-called host communities of Biddeford and Saco, MERC’s parent company agreed to remove its namesake acronym from the plant’s main, 244-foot ventilation stack.

From there, tensions between the company and its host communities cooled considerably. The 1990 lawsuit filed by Saco was settled out of court. The company’s stack no longer billowed plumes of ash. The next five years were described as a “honeymoon.”

But in June 1997, Ted Hill, then president of KTI (MERC’s parent company), called the mayors of Biddeford and Saco into his office for a meeting.

Biddeford Mayor James Grattelo and Saco Mayor Mark Johnston were both completing their final terms as their city’s respective mayor.

“We got to Ted’s office on Saco Island, and he told us he had good news,” Johnston recalled. “He said Central Maine Power Company opted to buy out the remainder of their power purchase agreement. Suddenly, the company had a lot of cash.”

Under the terms of MERC’s new and extended contract with the two cities, the company was required to immediately notify municipal officials of any changes to its financial or operational status.

The cities wanted MERC to use their new-found wealth (roughly $90 million) to improve the plant, especially its odor problems. The cities also wanted their tipping fees reduced. The company agreed to the former request but balked at the latter, arguing that they were under no obligation to lower tipping fees.

But when the company revamped its internal air handling systems, it was fined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). As time wore on, Johnston said, the company continuously increased the amount of trash it accepted to fuel its boilers.

Johnston said the renegotiated contract prohibits the company from accepting anything more than 212,000 tons of trash. Today, he estimates, the company processes in excess of 312,000 tons of trash each year.

In order to comply with the OSHA ruling, the company kept exterior doorways opened to improve inside air quality. The result was a significant increase in odor complaints that led to mounting citizen frustration and eventual political polarization.

Once considered to be too cozy with municipal officials, the company was now facing increasing pressure from its host communities to clean up its act or — better yet — get out of town. A new tone of getting tough on the company emerged from both city halls.

By the summer of 1998, a series of explosions in the company’s main shredder, coupled with increasing odor complaints, morphed into a fever pitch of resentment that was aimed directly at MERC. The troubled company also became the focal point of several political hopefuls as they planned their upcoming municipal election campaigns.

In December 1998, the Biddeford City Council drew first blood in what eventually became an all-out effort to shut down the company. A new ordinance was passed that levied significant fines for any calls the city’s fire department was forced to respond to at the incinerator.

In the summer of 1999, Jim Boldebook, the owner of an advertising agency best known for its Jolly John radio ads, launched a new website called stoptheodor.com

A focus for political leaders

With the November 1999 municipal elections looming, anti-MERC statements and positions seemed to be a favorable position for several candidates who formed an alliance devoted to “getting tough” on MERC.

A series of newspaper advertisements, labeled “This Stinks,” featured the names and photographs of political hopefuls from both Biddeford and Saco, including State Rep. Stephen Beaudette (D-Biddeford), who was then the Biddeford City Council president and a mayoral hopeful. Saco City Councilors Leslie Smith and Arthur Tardif were also featured in the ads, along with Johnston who was then attempting a political comeback by vying for a city council seat in Saco.

The ads, paid for by Johnston, contained information about MERC’s operations, encouraging readers to elect candidates who would take a hard stand against the company.

Saco and Biddeford both had new mayors. Both Bill Johnson and Donna Dion were hoping for a second term. Although they were not as publicly vocal in their criticisms of the company, they each pledged to keep a close eye on the company and its operations.

But company officials were not about to lie down and play dead.

“These advertisements are examples of guerilla warfare,” said Ted Hill, KTI’s president, in an October 1999 interview with the Courier. “These ads don’t look at the broader picture.”

And Samuel Zaitlin, a former Saco mayor who was then a KTI vice president, criticized the ads and candidates for telling “half-truths” and “distorting facts.”

“If you repeat a story long enough, and if you make unsubstantiated claims loud enough — it becomes very easy to play into the hands of certain cynicism,” Zaitlin said. “What many of these people don’t realize is that if they are elected, they will have to begin a reasoned and civilized process in order to seek reasonable solutions.”

Was it a sale?

But political pressure on the company continued, bolstered in part by the Dec. 15, 1999 announcement that MERC and its parent company were being acquired by Casella Waste Systems of Vermont.

As part of the 1991 contract, the cities included a clause that would entitle them to 20 percent of the plant’s value if it were sold. The cities claimed the merger represented a sale. The company countered by saying it was an acquisition, not a sale.

A bitter legal battle was on the horizon, and the two cities opted to take sharply different approaches. Meanwhile, MERC’s new owners pledged to “overwhelm and eliminate” the plant’s odor problems.

Saco officials, led by then Mayor Bill Johnson, began meeting with company officials behind closed doors in order to hammer out a new agreement that would give the city significantly lower tipping fees and address potential health concerns. The city also began exploring increased recycling options, such as its automated waste collection system that was eventually launched in Jan. 2003.

Biddeford officials, on the other hand, began reviewing legal strategies and eventually struck back at their neighbors across the river by re-routing all departing trash trucks from the company through Saco in April 2000.

Both Grattelo and Johnston had returned to elected office as city councilors in their respective communities and each called for keeping constant pressure on the company.

New owners come to town

Shortly after his company acquired the Maine Energy Recovery Co., John Casella, president and founder of Casella Waste Systems, sat down with city councilors and the mayors from Biddeford and Saco during a joint-council workshop meeting in Jan. 2000.

During that meeting, Casella and other company officials told local leaders that their company was anxious to become good corporate citizens. They promised to “overwhelm” continuing odor problems at the downtown Biddeford trash incinerator. They said they wanted to be part of the community’s long range planning by providing “innovative leadership” in the areas of recycling and solid waste removal.

But they also said that Maine Energy was here to stay, and that they had no intentions of shutting the plant down.

The public meeting, held at the McArthur Library, was intended to allow each side to “size-up” the other. It was a sometimes tense discussion that was attended by more than 100 concerned residents and business owners, including a group of men and women who were then working behind the scenes to form a new environmental watchdog organization.

A new voice of opposition

A significant shift was taking place in public opposition to the plant.

In February 2000, less than 30 days after Casella met with local leaders, the formation of Twin Cities Renaissance, a non-profit, environmental watchdog group, was announced. Unlike previous plant critics, the new group promised to work in a “reasonable manner” through a series of “pragmatic steps” to eventually relocate or close the company.

“It’s time to stop complaining,” said Mark Robinson, on of TCR’s founding members. “It’s time to do something.”

That “something” was outlined in TCR’s three-pronged mission statement, which includes ensuring that the company fulfills all of its contractual, regulatory and legal obligations; to encourage independent research that quantifies the economic, social and health impacts of the facility; and to explore alternative methods of waste disposal that includes a possible relocation of the plant.

“Solid waste disposal is an infrastructure challenge that confronts every city,” Robinson said as he explained his group’s mission statement during a press conference. “Biddeford and Saco have the unique and additional burden, however, of frequently suffering the pungent stench of garbage in the very heart of our downtown districts.”

Members of TCR, including bank presidents, environmentalists, health care providers and teachers, said their approach would stay clear of personality issues and instead focus upon any possible solutions to the overall problem.

Two different approaches

During the next year, even as Saco officials continued negotiating with the company, Biddeford officials began deliberating the passage of a new ordinance that would provide more stringent air emission standards than what were then required by either state or federal agencies.

But Biddeford’s proposed air toxics ordinance soon proved to be controversial. Other manufacturing firms raised concerns about the new standards, questioning whether the ordinance would be either effective or realistic.

In March 2002, the city of Saco was poised to renew an independent contract with the company. Then, after TCR rallied more than 150 residents to show up at City Hall and protest the move, the city council reversed its position, instead opting to follow Biddeford’s course and file a lawsuit against the company’s Vermont-based owners.

How much is it worth?

The central component of the pending lawsuits that were filed by both Biddeford and Saco involves the plant’s market value, which is still being disputed.    

While the towns believe the plant could be worth as much as $74 million, the company said last year that those estimates were grossly inaccurate. Citing diminishing electric power sales, company officials said the plant is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $22 million.

Although existing contracts allow the company to charge roughly 7 cents for each kilowatt hour of electricity it produces from burning trash, the current market price for surplus electricity is much lower — roughly 3.5 cents per kilowatt hour.

A settlement option

Facing mounting legal costs and the prospect of losing a low-cost source of trash disposal in 2007, when the municipal contracts expire, several of the charter towns that also use Maine Energy for the disposal of their municipal solid waste opted to settle their own collective lawsuit against the company earlier this year.

In exchange, the Tri-County collaborative, which includes the towns of Old Orchard Beach, Arundel, Kennebunk and Dayton, received a new and simpler contract, which provides significant savings in tipping fees for its 19 member communities.

“I would describe this as a big win for all the communities,” said Barry Tibbets, Kennebunk’s town manager, during an interview with the Courier last year.

The settlement followed upon the heels of a September 2002 announcement by company officials that they would be “willing to explore all options on the table within the parameters of a logical and reasonable discussion focused upon long-range solutions.”

But Biddeford officials, especially, seemed unfazed by the company’s gesture, saying the reversal is simply the result of their refusal to negotiate an out-of-court settlement.

Company officials, however, say they have not completely changed their position.

“If you stop and think about it, our position has never changed,” said James Bohlig, senior vice president of Casella Waste, during a March 2003 interview. “We were asked if we would be willing to just pack up and go home — and that answer would still be no. On the other hand, are we willing to explore all options for a win-win solution? The answer to that question has always been yes.”

Unwilling to settle

But the mayors of both Biddeford and Saco seemed to bristle when asked if they would consider settling their differences with MERC outside of the courtroom. Donna Dion, then Biddeford’s mayor, and Bill Johnson, Saco’s mayor, pointed to Zaitlin as a point of contention in the summer of 2002.

Zaitlin left the company in April 2000 in order to pursue a master’s degree at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He was hired as a consultant by Casella in 2002 and charged with assisting the company with its ongoing negotiations with MERC’s host communities.

In previous interviews, Zaitlin said he has been meeting on a regular basis since the summer of 2002 with TCR representatives. It was at about the same time as state officials began to take serious notice of TCR’s efforts to relocate the plant.

“The only way to address very complicated issues is through a rational dialogue in which both parties feel that they can be heard and involved,” Zaitlin told the Courier in Sept. 2002. “Regardless of what happens with the lawsuits, these issues are simply not going to disappear. We have to think about the long-term, and we must frame those discussions

in a thoughtful, hard look at the entire range of solid waste issues.”

But both Dion and Johnson questioned Zaitlin’s motives, citing his close friendship with then outgoing Gov. Angus King and his past employment with the company after serving as head of the Maine Bureau of Environmental Protection.

Dion and Johnson also rejected an offer by King to help negotiate a settlement, saying the process would likely extend well beyond the remainder of the governor’s term, which was set to expire in January 2003.

TCR officials expressed disappointment about the mayors’ decisions but said they would continue their work.

Changing dynamics

In November 2003, Johnston returned to the mayor’s post in Saco and Gen. Wallace Nutting, a retired U.S. Army General, upset two better known opponents in Biddeford’s mayoral race. Zaitlin urged Nutting to seek the office, saying the city needed a “rational” leader who could deal reasonably with MERC.

TCR members, meanwhile, struggled with competing public policy issues that overshadowed the MERC debate, including a proposal to develop a large-scale casino in Biddeford and then a so-called “racino” in Saco.

But during the last few months, TCR is again raising its voice and closely watching the ongoing MERC negotiations that now include the city of Biddeford. Recently, the group has called upon MERC to change the way odor violations are investigated and raised concerns about explosions of disposed propane tanks in the company’s shredder.

Despite their willingness to be rational and to steer clear of personality issues, members of TCR also maintain that they want the company to be held accountable for all of its obligations.

“I know that when the company speaks of relocation, it intends that it will be paid $100 million or so,” said Rick Hull, a Biddeford attorney and TCR member in a previous interview with the Courier last year. “For my part, I believe that if all relevant environmental standards are strictly applied, the company would be shut down for compliance failures.”

What does the future hold?

But the company’s possible closure or relocation remains questionable, despite reports that a state-owned landfill in Old Town would be willing to accept local municipal solid waste.

MERC is still Biddeford’s largest taxpayer, and the city’s other top two commercial taxpayers (Interstate Brands Corp., which owns the Nissen Baking plant; and West Point Stevens) have both reported financial problems. Furthermore, public opposition to the Old Town landfill seems to be increasing.

“There are a number of things for both cities to consider as we move down the road,” Zaitlin said. “The existing contracts will expire in 2007. The market rate for solid waste disposal is constantly on the increase. And the cities will have to go to the market, and even if they can find another option, they have to consider a number of other variables such as transportation costs and the building of a transfer facility.”

Today, the negotiations continue and the pending lawsuit awaits. Meanwhile, many people continue to wonder whether the MERC plant will ever go away or if it will continue to be a fixture in the heart of both host communities.

MERC: Broader implications for Maine’s solid waste problems

~ Randy Seaver ~ 1 Comment

In many ways, Old Town is a lot like Biddeford. Both cities are supported by a manufacturing base and perched along a river bank. Biddeford has the University of New England, and Old Town is just a short drive away from the University of Maine’s Orono campus.

But while Biddeford considers the possibility of getting out of a host communities contract with Casella Waste Systems, city officials in Old Town are now preparing to enter into a similar agreement with the same company.

And in the end, if the controversial MERC plant is closed in Biddeford, the trash that is now incinerated on the banks of the Saco River could soon be on its way north, to where the Penobscot and Stillwater rivers merge.

The convergence of the two cities started a little more than two years ago, when Georgia Pacifc (headquartered in Atlanta) announced in February 2003 that it would soon close the doors at its Old Town tissue- paper mill.

Gov. John Baldacci’s office immediately scrambled, setting up a deal to save 450 jobs that pay an average of $55,000 per year by purchasing the paper mill’s 68-acre landfill in nearby West Old Town.

The deal allowed Georgia Pacific to use the money to become more efficient and save energy costs by developing a biomass boiler. That, state officials hoped, would make the mill more efficient and prevent the jobs from being transferred out of state.

That deal, however, set the stage for controversy, creating noticeable tension in the community of 8,500 people where Georgia Pacific pays $3.3 million in property taxes, roughly one-third of the city’s tax roll.

The deal was formally struck in February 2004, allowing the state to buy the landfill from Georgia Pacific for $26 million. But since Maine didn’t have the cash to buy the landfill, it sought help from Casella, offering the Vermont-based company a 30-year lease to operate the existing landfill.

By state law, the development of commercial landfills has been banned since 1989. Since Casella needed a way to increase its market share, the company agreed to pay $26 million for the operation rights, giving them a firm market hold in Maine, where they also own a number of related facilities, including the MERC plant in Biddeford and the former Pine Tree landfill in Hampden, a short drive south of Old Town.

Although the deal seems to have many advantages — including increased disposal capacity, saving endangered jobs and providing a glimmer of hope for closing MERC — critics say the bad outweighs the good and accuse state officials of merely allowing two large, out of-state companies to get into bed together at the expense of a small community’s environmental well-being.

The battle begins

Matt Dunlap was serving as Old Town’s state representative when Georgia Pacific announced two years ago that it would be closing its plant. Today, Dunlap serves as Maine’s Secretary of State, and he described the landfill deal as “one of the hardest things I have ever dealt with.”

Dunlap said the deal pitted neighbor against neighbor in Old Town.

“I lost some very good friends because of this situation,” he said during a telephone interview Friday. “I remember coming out of one public hearing in Old Town, and somebody had written the word ‘traitor’ on the back of my truck.”

Dunlap quickly concedes that the deal was moved along quickly, but insisted that no one did anything to hide the truth or to purposefully cloud the issue, as critics of the deal contend.

“We did debate this at 11:30 at night,” Dunlap said, referring to the legislative session that ended in June 2003, when state lawmakers were asked to approve the landfill’s transfer of ownership at the last possible minute — just before the session was scheduled to end. “Everyone was scrambling to do whatever we could.”

Like other state officials, Dunlap points out that the West Old Town Landfill was already in existence when the state offered to buy it. The landfill, he said, was previously owned by the James River paper mill and was used for that company’s sludge disposal. When Georgia Pacific bought the James River mill the landfill was part of the package.

“One way or another that landfill was going to be sold,” Dunlap said. “I thought it was better to have the state buy it so that we could have more control over it.”

If Georgia Pacific had closed its doors in Old Town it would be an economic catastrophe for the city, Dunlap said. “The worst news you can get when you’re a legislator is that one of your largest employers is shutting down,” Dunlap said. “We had to move at a fast pace.”

Despite critics’ assertions that the deal was kept under wraps, Dunlap said many people in Old Town didn’t pay much attention to the deal until it was finalized. “There were front-page stories in the Penobscot Times (an area weekly newspaper) and the Bangor Daily News, but people apparently didn’t pay much attention. It was such a complicated issue.”

But State Rep. Joanne Twomey (D-Biddeford) said the deal was never clearly explained to residents, pointing out that the public notice of the legislative hearing, which was published in the Bangor Daily News, never included mention that the landfill would now be allowed to accept “special waste.”

“All they said was that the landfill’s ownership was being transferred,” Twomey said. “If they had told people what was really going on, more people would have come to the hearing.”

Regardless, critics of the deal say it sets up a dangerous precedent, one which allows the state to be both the applicant and the grantor for expansion permits at the landfill, which is nestled in a marshy area on the westerly side of I-95, near the border of the neighboring town of Alton and the Pushaw Creek, a tributary of the Stillwater River.

Dirty deeds, done dirt cheap?

On the one-year anniversary of when the DEP signed the landfill’s new license (April 9, 2004), a group of the deal’s most vocal critics gathered at the home of Laura and Harry Sanborn in Alton.

The Sanborn property sits almost directly across the road from the main entrance of the West Old Town Landfill. For six generations, the family has owned the property that now features a modern, ranch-style home with a landscaped yard.

Soon, an increasing number of trash trucks will be rumbling down the road in front of the Sanborn property, which abuts Rte. 16.

“We don’t have a problem with taking care of our trash,” said Harry Sanborn, a management consultant. “We’re not a bunch of NIMBY (Not-In-My-Back-Yard) types. We know that we have a responsibility to take care of our trash, but this deal stinks.”

Laura Sanborn said she gave up her seat in the Maine House of Representatives so that she could focus on issues surrounding the landfill. When asked if she could be re-elected after publicly opposing a deal that was designed to save jobs, she took a deep breath and said,

“I’m not sure, but I know that I’m doing the right thing.”

The Sanborns are members of a group known as We The People, a grass-roots coalition of highly motivated people who share only one common denominator: opposition to expanding the West Old Town Landfill.

The group has fi led an appeal in Penobscot County Superior Court, arguing that the landfill should not have received a permit to expand.

According to the Maine State Planning Office, the 68-acre landfill will now be able to take in 10 million cubic yards of waste, stretching 180-feet above ground level.

George McDonald, manager of waste recycling at the SPO, said the West Old Town Landfill would likely be able to operate for 30 years, despite the need for another expansion in three years that is already in the works.

We The People members, however, wonder why the state didn’t consider the Carpenter Ridge landfill in Lincoln for their new deal.

Carpenter Ridge sits on 37 acres, but McDonald said expanding it would be cost prohibitive (estimated at $35 million) and points out DEP concerns about its geologic stability. “It’s still something we mayhave to look at down the road,” he said.

But the Old Town plan seems to work better (or worse, depending on the perspective) for a deal, which essentially allows Georgia Pacific to escape any future liability concerns connected to the West Old Town landfill, where critics have already raised environmental concerns.

Members of We The People say the deal does nothing for Maine’s future, only allowing Georgia Pacific and Casella to make millions of dollars while the state was held hostage for politically-valuable paper mill jobs.

“Ultimately, this is all about money,” said Stan Levitsky, a graphic designer and member of We The People. “Just look at the corporate connections. Georgia Pacific’s attorney (John Delahanty of Pierce Atwood) is a registered lobbyist for Casella.”

The money trail

While the West Old Town Landfill deal allows Casella to operate a commercial landfill that is really not a commercial landfill because it is owned by the state, Georgia Pacific also got a lot more than a $26 million biomass boiler out of the deal.

And while the governor’s office said the deal would save jobs, there is no written guarantee of that fact, especially in an economy that is becoming increasingly competitive as global markets continue to merge.

Thus, We The People contends that the state got left with the short end of the stick and their community will soon become host to an increasing amount of trash from all over Maine and beyond.

As part of the deal, Casella will be allowed to take in roughly 540,000tons per year of trash into the landfill. Furthermore, Casella has offered to sell some of that trash (construction and demolition debris) to Georgia Pacific as fuel for its new boiler. That “fuel” cost will be capped at $4 per ton, which is roughly half the current market rate, allowing Casella to have more capacity at the landfill and Georgia Pacific to enjoy subsidized energy costs, netting Casella roughly another $400,000 in annual revenue.

Political connections

Paul Schroeder, another member of We The People, said some of his biggest concerns about the deal focus on how it was orchestrated, saying pressure from the governor’s offi ce was put on the DEP to ensure that the deal would go through.

“Maine is going to become the final resting ground for everything that no one else wants, and it was all done under the guise of saving jobs,” Schroeder says. “The similarities between Old Town and Biddeford shouldn’t come as a surprise. That’s how these deals are done.”

And Levitsky says the people of Old Town were never asked whether they wanted to approve the deal, crediting Twomey with at least pushing for public hearings about the proposal. “Originally, people like Matt Dunlap were saying we didn’t need public hearings because this was all about saving jobs,” Levitsky said. “No one did their homework until it was too late.”

Schroeder has constructed a detailed timeline of the events leading up to the deal’s approval, pointing out that the original proposal came out of the Legislative Revisor’s  office on May 30, 2003. On June 2, 2003, the following Monday, a public notice about the hearing was published in the Bangor Daily News. On June 3, the hearing was held and only seven people showed up to testify, all union representatives who were concerned about the possible loss of Georgia-Pacifi c jobs.

“We never knew about it,” Schroeder said. “It was signed, sealed and delivered before anyone could balk.”

What to do now?

Gary Sirois is the chair of the Old Town City Council. Now serving his second term on the council, Sirois said he’s trying to “look at the whole picture” as his council considers a long-term, host communities contract with Casella.

“We’re concerned, but we have to go on the assurances that we’re getting from the state,” Sirois said. “It’s a difficult and complicated issue, but we’re told that the management of that landfill is going to be done right.”

Sirois said his council will likely spend the next few months in negotiations with Casella, and declined to discuss specifics of the proposed contract, citing their confidentiality during executive session meetings. “We’re just trying to do the best we can with what we’ve got,” he said.

Others in Old Town, especially those who say the deal will benefit their city, were hesitant to speak on the record about the deal, citing concerns about increasing tensions in the city.

Peggy Daigle, the newly appointed city manager, did not return the Courier’s repeated phone calls for an interview.

Meanwhile, Joanne Twomey, one of MERC’s earliest and most vocal critics, sighed when she was told about Sirois’ statements. “It’s happening all over again,” she said, referring to her own unsuccessful battle to keep MERC out of Biddeford some 20 years ago. “It just keeps coming, and it makes you feel like just giving up.”