The Fort Fairfield Town Council decided Wednesday night to wait until the New Year to vote on whether to approve a merger of the Tri-Community Landfill and the Presque Isle Landfill.
After a more than hour-long public hearing, the councilors voted to table a proposal before them that would have paved the way for the merger between the Presque Isle facility and the landfill located in Fort Fairfield that is jointly owned by Fort Fairfield, Limestone and Caribou. The council will take up the issue on Jan. 3.
Multiple residents and town councillors raised concerns about the implications of merging the two landfills, including the possibility that taxpayers in Fort Fairfield could have to shoulder the financial liability of future environmental problems at the Presque Isle Landfill.
The boards of the two facilities have been drafting a merger agreement for more than a year with the aim of having a more efficient landfill serving a small population.
A full merger plan has not been made public, but the Tri-Community Landfill solid waste director, Mark Draper, offered some details at the packed Fort Fairfield hearing with more than 40 people in attendance.
Under the merger, the Presque Isle Landfill would close — either at the end of its current seven year capacity, or sooner — while the Tri-Community Landfill would become the region’s main landfill facility, serving much of Aroostook County’s trash disposal needs.
“In either case, there would be no significant changes for the customers of the TCL,” Draper said.
As part of the proposal, Presque Isle would pay Caribou, Limestone and Fort Fairfield $2 million for associated landfill liability and closure costs of the Presque Isle Landfill, Draper said.
The agreement also would create a board of directors where Caribou and Presque Isle would each have two seats, and Fort Fairfield and Limestone each one seat.
Residents and councillors who spoke during the public hearing questioned the fairness of awarding Presque Isle two seats on the board, and some suggested Fort Fairfield, as the host community for the landfill, also should have two seats on the board.
Town councillor Mitch Butler, a former TCL board member, said he was disappointed that there wasn’t more public information disclosed before the meeting.
Butler asked Draper if under the merger Fort Fairfield residents would have to help pay for future environmental liabilities at the Presque Isle Landfill, and Draper responded that they would, since the four municipalities would be co-owners of both facilities.
“There’s a lot of concern out there that we’re going to be responsible for all this stuff,” Butler said.
The Presque Isle Landfill opened in 1982 as the state’s first secure landfill with a liner and collection system — a system using only a clay liner that in the 1990s was found to be leaching wastewater. Presque Isle ended up remediating, closing and capping that 13 acre section of the landfill in 2010 and opening a new section with a modern plastic and geotextile lining system.
The Tri-Community Landfill originally opened in 1977 but was modernized and expanded in the 1990s.
Fort Fairfield resident Gary Cyrway urged councillors to table the matter until they have more information, and suggested that they should be able to see more detailed financial projections of the merger going out 10 or more years.
David Dorsey, a retired banker, suggested that in addition to the one-time $2 million payment, the deal should require Presque Isle to pay into a type of protection bond that would cover potential future liability costs in decades to come rather than exposing other towns to those costs.
