March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Commissioners to negotiate for use of Greenville landfill

DOVER-FOXCROFT — The Piscataquis County commissioners voted Tuesday to begin negotiations with the Greenville Board of Selectmen regarding the use of the town’s landfill by residents in the unorganized townships of Lily Bay and Frenchtown.

The commissioners voted to begin the negotiations at more than Greenville’s current cost per ton of $56, and to secure a contract for more than three years.

Meeting with the commissioners Tuesday, Shawn Small of Civil Engineering Services Inc. of Brewer said the county had four options for the disposal of solid waste in the two communities. The county could join the Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. or CWS in Norridgewock, build a landfill, or contract with Greenville. He said it would cost $70-$80 a ton to join PERC once the facility had developed an ash landfill. The cost per ton to join CWS would be about $75, and the cost to the county for a landfill would be about $340 a ton, Small said. The best option to the county, he said, would be to negotiate a contract with Greenville. He estimated that the two townships generated about 136 tons of solid waste a year.

Small discouraged the commissioners from continuing their study for the expansion or continuation of the Frenchtown landfill. The results of hydrogeological work completed indicated that the landfill probably would not be acceptable to the Department of Environmental Protection for expansion or continued use, he said.

Instead, Small encouraged the county commissioners to negotiate with Greenville and to install a mini-transfer station at a new site about one mile from the current landfill in Lily Bay. He said 12-16 dumpsters could be installed there. If this is the option selected by the commissioners, the residents from the two communities would take their trash to the dumpsters, and a contractor would transport the containers to be emptied at the Greenville landfill.

Also relating to solid waste, the commissioners voted to review a landfill closing plan submitted by Small for Frenchtown. A similar proposal for the Lily Bay landfill will be submitted to the commissioners within the next few weeks, he said. The county must submit the landfill closing plans to the DEP before Dec. 1 to be considered for 75 percent reimbursement costs.

Small estimated that the first-year closing costs of the Frenchtown landfill would be $30,810, and post-closure maintenance costs $30,000. The closure costs of the Lily Bay landfill will be similar, he said.

In other business, the commissioners voted to make an on-site inspection of Larson Road in Williamsburg. Residents of that road petitioned the commissioners last month to have the half mile of roadway paved.

The commissioners reviewed an application submitted to the Land Use Regulatory Commission by Barton and Lew-Ellyn Hughes for a four-lot subdivision on Route 15 at the entrance to Squaw Village Condominiums in Little Squaw Township.


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