Podcasts

Documents

Maine sludge crisis is over – for 2 years, at least


A temporary compromise reached by lawmakers means Maine communities are once again burying sewage sludge in the state-owned landfill at Juniper Ridge near Old Town, and don't have to pay extra to haul the waste to New Brunswick, Canada.

BY PENELOPE OVERTON, STAFF WRITER

Maine’s sludge disposal crisis is over for now, but the search continues for a permanent solution.

Maine communities are once again burying sewage sludge in the state-owned landfill at Juniper Ridge near Old Town and no longer have to pay extra to haul the waste to New Brunswick, Canada. The last truckload of Maine sludge headed to Canada on July 7.

“Our last bill was down, but we should see the full effect in our next bill,” said Dave Hughes, superintendent of the Scarborough Sanitary District. “We’re better off than most. The district has reserves, so we didn’t have to raise rates right away, but it was hugely expensive, and reserves don’t last forever.”

Before the sludge crisis, Scarborough was paying Casella Waste Systems, the contractor that operates Juniper Ridge for Maine, about $400,000 a year to dispose of its sludge at the state landfill. After Casella started trucking sludge to Canada, Hughes put Scarborough’s annual disposal rate at $600,000.
Casella started hauling sludge to Canada in February after it concluded that the landfill could no longer safely accept sludge from its three dozen municipal customers. That much wet material posed a threat to the landfill’s structural integrity, putting the pit itself in danger of collapse, Cassella said.

Casella blamed the sludge crisis on two new laws intended to protect Maine’s environment: one prohibited the use of sludge as an agricultural fertilizer due to elevated levels of potentially dangerous forever chemicals and the other banned out-of-state waste from Maine landfills.

Read full article

Donate

Please support the work of the Sewage Sludge Action Network. Be as generous as you can. Thank you!


Mailing List

To receive alerts, news and information from the Sewage Sludge Action Network, please join our mailing list.

Suggested Reading


Sludge Tracker: Toxicus ad Infinitum - The Adverse Impact of Land-Disposed Toxic Sewage Sludge on Human & Environmental Health

Paperback
December 8, 2022
380 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0965262154
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0965262156


Science for Sale
How the US Government Uses Powerful Corporations and Leading Universities to Support Government Policies, Silence Top Scientists, Jeopardize Our Health, and Protect Corporate Profits

Hardcover
June 3, 2014
328 pages
ISBN: 1626360715


Only One Chance
How Environmental Pollution Impairs Brain Development -- and How to Protect the Brains of the Next Generation

Hardcover
07 May 2013
232 Pages
ISBN: 9780199985388

Purchase from Oxford University Press

What You Can Do

Contact Us



The title of the page