Agency seeks to use grant to cap landfill instead of hazard waste collection facility

OTHER NEWS: Mount Desert revisiting purpose of land-use advisory committee

SOUTHWEST HARBOR, OCT. 27, 2024 - Acadia Disposal District, the regional agency which manages municipal waste disposal, has suspended its efforts to site a permanent household hazardous waste facility on the island and is exploring other ways to use a $350,000 federal grant.

District Chair Tony Smith said attempts to locate a repository for such waste “probably will not bear fruit” after it was determined that the transfer station here was inappropriate for such use.

SWH select board member Jim Vallette on Aug. 13 questioned putting additional stress on the Eastern Maine Recovery station close to Long Pond, saying the the original landfill in the area had never been properly shut down according to DEP standards.

He released a 12-page analysis and history of that facility.

“A state agency has been paying for some of our residents’ drinking water for decades because there are plumes of pollution coming from the uncontrolled closed landfill. Some pollutants are PFAS.  The state says this is ‘clearly having an adverse impact on local groundwater quality. This will continue into the foreseeable future.’

“This ongoing impact on our community traces back to practices that are not the sole responsibility of the private company that operated the landfill. The operations were permitted. A lot of responsibility lies with government and quasi-governmental agencies that have failed to protect the residents of Southwest Harbor. This includes other towns that used it as their dumping grounds for garbage and sewage sludge.

“This responsibility extends to the state. The DEP allowed the company to mix sewage sludge with household waste, knowing this was an unlined landfill next to a national park, wetlands and our town’s drinking water source. It allowed this to continue for years after knowing it is a source of groundwater contamination. Rather than taking responsibility, the state says it has no funding to remediate. 

“Given the shared responsibilities for the plume, and its proximity to Long Pond and Acadia National Park, funding can be sought from state and federal agencies to complete the closure of the landfill.  Brownfield grants come to mind. Outreach to legislators might be helpful. Potentially, what is now fenced off acreage could become useful again. A hiking and bicycling trail could connect the Marshall Brook trail south of Seal Cove Pond to the Long Pond network. Suitable spaces could be used for other kinds of development.”

The district board will now explore shifting the original use of the grant to properly “cap” the landfill.

The original federal grant was parked in a interest-bearing account which has now grown to $360,000.

The district will seek assistance from Maine Senator Angus King, who helped secure the federal money, with the proposed change of use. “It’s not a slam dunk,” Smith said.

Another use could be to to increase the number of days of the annual universal waste collection program at the high school.

Smith said capping the landfill “could be anywhere from shaping the landfill so that water will drain off at a controlled control speed to a shallow slope.”

Whatever the method, it will require final approval by the DEP, Smith said.

“You shape the landfill for drainage purposes. Then you put a layer of common boreal, just earth from a pasture somewhere, so the water moving down through will run off.”

Smith, who had experience for such closures as the former public works director in Mount Desert, described adding layers of sand, seed and a plastic liner over the shaped landfill.

The Acadia Disposal District includes Mount Desert, Trenton, Tremont, Cranberry Isles, Frenchboro and Southwest Harbor.

Mount Desert select board wants tighter mission statement for land-use committee

NORTHEAST HARBOR - The zoning code is the third rail of municipal politics. Towns struggle to keep them contemporaneously relevant. There are winners and losers virtually any time the code is amended.

About 15 years ago, this town became the first and still the only one on MDI to entrust much of the work to update the land-use zoning ordinance in a citizens committee with a few “ex-officio” members - the town manager, code enforcement officer and a liaison from the select board.

Now comes the select board representative, Rick Mooers, who believes the committee has “morphed” into something larger beyond its original intent as a “simple ad hoc committee to review inconsistencies in the LUZO.”

At the select board meeting Oct. 7, Mooers cited the conflict between road frontage and lot size as an example.

Mooers said he was on the select board at the time, “when some lots were pie shaped and didn't have much road frontage. They had to then look at the lot size itself, or is that sufficient road frontage?”

Instead of just solving such inconsistencies, Mooer said the committee has become a repository for tackling much bigger zoning issues such as subdivisions.

For years the committee operated without a chair and often failed to follow parliamentary rules.

The recent appointment of Planning Board member Gail Marshall as chair created the opportunity for the select board to seek tighter oversight of the committee. It voted unanimously to ask the committee for a mission statement.

At the LUZO committee meeting Oct. 15, Marshall presented her draft of such a statement:

“The Land-use Zoning Advisory Committee is a non decision-making committee created by the Select Board for the purposes of providing citizen input and advice on ordinances pertaining to land use matters in the town.

“The work of the committee includes generating proposals for new ordinances and amendments to existing ordinances. The work of the committee will be in coordination with and responsive to the priorities of the Select Board and Planning Board.

“The committee may receive requests for proposed ordinances from the public, but should seek input from the Select Board and/or Planning Board before proceeding with action on such requests.

“The committee's work will be gathered by the principles articulated in the comprehensive plan. It will strive for simplification and clarity that is user friendliness and the land use ordinances.

“The committee will annually, in an ongoing basis, attempt to prioritize its work to best reflect the greatest needs as articulated by the Select Board and Planning Board. The committee will provide opportunity for resident feedback on its work.

“The committee will make recommendations to the Select Board and Planning Board of proposals for land use ordinance changes to be considered and disposed of a town meeting, and will facilitate the Planning Board's public hearings on the matters. It may adopt it some procedures, and it encourages residents to apply to the Select Board, to serve on the committee. Terms of it for three years.”

Marshall added the draft “should be simply seen as a conversation starter, and what I started with was simply my perception of what the committee is, maybe putting a little structure around it and what and how it should function.”