Unpaid bills latest in waste plant’s inglorious, endless saga; will MRC re-elect president?
Fishing ban limited to deep water; Bar Harbor VRs top 700; Tremont moratorium in motion
SOMESVILLE, Dec. 5, 2021 - The temperature in Hampden Friday night dipped below 15 degrees, low enough to freeze pipes at the $90 million white elephant otherwise known as the Fiberight waste plant where no one has been paying the gas bill.
The Bangor Daily News’ David Marino broke the story last week that the “Hampden waste plant could be ‘rendered useless’ after natural gas shutoff.’ ”
Just when we thought Freddy Krueger was dead and the horror movie was over, the Municipal Review Committee unveils another plot twist to test our tolerance for the macabre which is the endless saga of the slow death of the Hampden plant and its parent agency, the MRC.
The MRC sought emergency intervention last week from the Public Utilities Commission to force the Bangor Natural Gas Company to turn on the gas which it has refused to do because the plant operators owe almost $473,462 for past bills and breach of contract claims. The original operator, Fiberight, is under receivership.
The most recent operator, Delta Thermo Energy, has never been able to raise financing, and was stripped of its exclusivity by the MRC so it could seek other buyers for the defunct plant, now sitting there with no gas.
The MRC stated in its PUC filing, “With the Maine winter season fast approaching, gas service is critical to prevent the release of pollutants to the environment and for public safety considerations (i.e., operational fire sprinkler).
“With no secured creditor or lienholder taking action to secure the plant in advance of this winter, on November 1, 2021, MRC requested BNG create a new account in MRC’s name to provide gas service.”
Benjamin J. Smith, attorney for the gas company, scoffed at the MRC’s claims.
“MRC’s scare tactics if the Commission does not intervene, including the potential environmental damage or other public safety concerns, are red herrings and beg the Commission to take extra jurisdictional action and intrude upon pending litigation and lawful orders of the Maine Superior Court. MRC may seek relief from the Maine Superior Court, which has exclusive jurisdiction over the present dispute and subject matter of litigation.”
QSJ asked MRC director Michael Carroll why it waited until November to seek intervention, and he replied, “Because the MRC does not own the plant, bill’s do not come to the MRC. They go either to the Bondholder Trustee, or as has been the case since DTE gained exclusivity, to DTE. The MRC was not aware that the gas bill was not being paid by DTE (which partially led to the revocation of exclusivity) until we received a notice that the gas would be shut off.”
Except that by his own filing, Carroll stated that MRC discovered DTE wasn’t paying its bills in August, but waited until Nov. 17 to file its PUC request.
“The information provided in August had to be forwarded to the appropriate parties, i.e. the Bondholder’s Trustee and DTE, the latter having exclusivity to buy the plant, and who promised to pay the expenses necessary for maintaining it in advance of closing on the property.
“The MRC was notified on October 26th that DTE had not paid the gas bill, and on October 26th, Bangor Natural Gas issued an order for disconnection. At that time, MRC tried to work with Bangor Natural Gas to get the account changed to our name and turned back on. Once Bangor gas declined our request, we filed our petition with the PUC.”
The MRC has been singing the “we don’t own the plant” line ever since Fiberight collapsed 18 months ago - as if it’s an exculpatory factor to its mismanagement.
In fact what MRC did was far worse, handing the exclusive rights to manage the trash of 115 towns to two successive operators who proved to be grossly under-capitalized.
A pattern of neglect? Who’s paying attention?
Flashback to 2016:
MRC’s then treasurer Karen Fussell and executive director Greg Lounder hit the road to dangle a profit-sharing plan to woo cities and towns to achieve a minimum 150,000 tons needed to support the new waste-to-energy plant proposed for Hampden. The City of Brewer, where Fussell is finance director, was the first to sign up on the promises of Fiberight Corp.
The resulting consortium is a hodgepodge of municipalities with no geographic reason other than they are are all in Maine. Towns which didn’t buy the sales pitch - Ellsworth, Lamoine and others - have robust recycling operations.
Mount Desert’s public works director Tony Smith, the only MDI official on the board, was a strong champion of Fiberight. He remains steadfastly loyal to the MRC, and no one on the town select board has challenged him nor questioned his conflicted interest between the MRC and the Town of Mount Desert.
Other promises in 2016:
Fiberight would use state-of-the-art technology to change organic trash into biogas after the glass, metal, paper and plastic are recycled.
Fiberight’s process would be so economical it could process trash at $70 per ton for a 15-year contract. The competitor incinerator in Orrington’s “tipping fee” price was $84.36 per ton for a 15-year agreement or $89.57 for a 10-year contract.
Despite skepticism from experts about Fiberight’s claims, MRC relied on its single tech consultant for due diligence, along with its outside counsel, Eaton Peabody, for legal matters. Presumably they weighed the multiple risks of depending on a highly leveraged tenant with a single-use facility and no experience operating such a technology platform.
Fiberight’s operating subsidiary, Coastal Resources, opened the plant to great fanfare in 2019. It promised to be at the top of Maine’s waste management hierachy. Senator Susan Collins got great TV coverage on a tour as she campaigned for re-election.
But the house of cards fell apart quickly.
By early 2020, Coastal needed a cash infusion. The MRC doubled down, and gave Coastal a $1.5 million loan. That debt is now $4 million, Carroll said. “The loan paid to Coastal Resources of Maine was $1.5 million. Add to that, interest on the loan and the money that the MRC spent to secure the plant to maintain our DEP permits, and the figure owed to the MRC is $4 million.”
The loan was not enough. In a matter of weeks, the operator stopped paying its bills. In May of 2020, the plant closed. The incinerator operated by Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. - the firm mocked by MRC board members as retro and lacking vision - saved the day and began to take in the trash from MRC towns. Landfills also were used.
Ten years after MRC embarked on its quixotic mission, the 115 -town consortium found itself at the bottom of the waste management hierarchy in the summer of 2020.
Instead of taking a breath to consider its options, Fussell and other members, including Mount Desert’s Tony Smith, went back to the exact playbook which failed spectacularly in less than a year.
They rushed to select Delta Thermo Energy, whose false promises, including claims of its financial wherewithal, were called out in detail by the BDN’s David Marino and QSJ in numerous articles.
Worse than Fiberight, DTE couldn’t even get out of the gate. It was never able to attain the financing needed to close the deal to acquire the asset, forcing MRC to strip its exclusivity in its memorandum of understanding.
Why were the MRC staff, board members, consultants and lawyers so surprised that Coastal Resources, which closed the plant in May 2020 because it ran out of money, could not pay the gas bill? Who did the due diligence on how well Fiberight was capitalized?
Why was the same corpus of characters surprised that DTE, which could not raise financing to close the deal, could not or would not pay its bill to keep the plant solvent?
“This is a last gasp effort on the part of the Municipal Review Committee (MRC) to salvage a deal that was untenable from the start,” said State Rep. Lynne Williams, who represents Bar Harbor and Mount Desert. “In my opinion, Bangor Natural Gas has the authority to shut off its pipeline to a non-paying customer. It is time that Bar Harbor, and other members of the MRC, seek out an option for waste removal that involves recycling and reliable and safe waste disposal.”
At this point the only folks profiting from this train wreck are the bankers, lawyers and consultants who continue to wrack up six-figure fees. The MRC at this point is operating nothing. The trash from the 115 towns of the consortium is bypassing the Hampden plant and burned at PERC or taken to landfills.
MRC is simply a bureaucratic layer collecting fees from its member towns and trying to untangle the web of its own creation.
Except that its master agreement with the member towns doesn’t allow for them to seek alternatives. The MRC is like the deadbeat uncle who won’t move out of the house.
Worse, the more it schemes, the more it exposes itself to more legal entanglement.
MRC President Karen Fussell, who doesn’t give interviews, wrote a letter to the Ellsworth American last week in which she stated in part:
“MRC understands and shares the frustration of members who want to see their waste processed at higher levels of the state’s Solid Waste Management Hierarchy. That is precisely the reason why MRC is working with the bondholders to find a new owner and reopen the solid waste processing plant in Hampden.
“We encourage interested members to visit MRC’s website where they can sign up to receive MRC emails, review FAQs about the project and find MRC documents. Our meetings are open to the public and streamed live on our website and our Facebook page.”
The MRC board has conducted its business in secret for 18 months. Readers may go to its website and see how often it invoked state law for “executive session.” MRC’s Carroll stopped answering questions from QSJ this week, saying they have become a ”distraction.”
FOOTNOTE:
Three candidates are challenging Fussell’s re-election to the MRC board which is being decided by the member select boards and town councils this week. Jim Vallette, vice chair of Southwest Harbor’s warrant committee, is by far the most qualified. Here is a scan of his application:
Most lobster fishers not affected by seasonal ban upheld by SCOTUS
BASS HARBOR - The sound of the Yanmar diesels awakens this village from April through November, and falls silent but for a few boats during the winter months. That is because most Maine lobstermen do not go to deep waters during the winter months. Many choose to scallop or fish for other prey.
This point was made by Richard M. Pace, the biologist whose underlying research has been used by environmental groups to argue for bans on lobster fishing to protect Right Whales from being entangled in gear. The Supreme Court on Friday declined to overturn a lower court’s imposition of fishing restrictions in Maine to protect the endangered whales.
In an emergency application docketed Tuesday, the Maine Lobstering Union and three fishing companies based in Stonington and Vinalhaven called on the Supreme Court to reverse a decision by a federal appeals court that preserved a federal prohibition on the use of vertical buoy ropes in waters 30 miles off the coast of Maine.
Justice Stephen Breyer Friday rejected the request without comment.
The ban is for a 967-square miles of mostly federal waters.
“Most of the in-state water fishery is not an issue for Right Whales,” biologist Pace said in an interview with QSJ in March. “The vast majority of it is not a problem because Right Whales don’t use that habitat.”
“Maine has this weird foothold in terms of the management and considerations of something called the Lobster Area 1 which includes a whole bunch of federal waters,” Pace said. “A lot of that is deeper water, and water that Right Whales would use during certain times of the year.
“It’s the gear out there that is more likely a problem, not the in-state gear,” Pace said.
“It’s always been truly amazing to me that the guys who fish only in state waters in small boats and around the islands within the three-mile buffer of state waters didn’t throw the off-shore guys under the bus.”
Vacation rentals exceed quarter of all BH dwellings
BAR HARBOR - The final count for registered vacation rentals is 740 dwelling units or 26.5 percent of the town’s housing stock, Code Enforcement Officer Angela Chamberlain reported this week after the Dec. 2 cutoff date for registrations.
“We issued registrations for 510 renewal VR’s in 2021 and 230 new VR’s in 2021,” she stated.
On Nov. 2, by a huge margin, 1260-840, voters here created a category of vacation rentals not occupied by owners as primary residences (VR2) and to disallow the transfer of their registration upon sale of the dwellings, until they decline to 9 percent of the housing stock. They are now about 20 percent.
But the number of those registrants who have no intention of renting their homes is unknown and form a big obstacle toward the town’s ability to achieve its goal of 9 percent, or 252 units using the last count of dwellings, 2,795, by the assessor.
At its peak this fall airdna.com, which keeps track of vacation rentals on airbnb.com and vrbo.com, showed 560 active vacation rentals in Bar Harbor. That meant the unrented VR2s could be as high as180, or 6.5 percent, leaving little room for reduction.
Estimates of units occupied by owners as their primary residence are about 175. Those units (VR1) will now be able to rent for a minimum of two nights, as opposed to four nights for non owner-occupied units (VR2).
Chamberlain said 42 applications failed to get processed by the Dec. 2 deadline, 30 days after the town vote.
Multiple motions in play as Tremont gears up for next stage of campground war
TREMONT - The select board has decided to postpone the decision on whether to extend the town’s campground moratorium to give the Planning Board time to consider the request first.
“Due to the fact that the Planning Board has not even met to have a substantial discussion on the moratorium the Town Attorney advised placing this request on an agenda in early January would be more appropriate, allowing time for some discussion to take place on the Planning Board level,” Town Manager Jesse Dunbar stated in an email.
Residents voted 428-215 on Nov. 2 for a six month moratorium retroactive to Aug. 2 on campground development the day after the planning board approved the 55-site Acadia Wilderness Lodge on Rt. 102 in West Tremont.
The item will be included on either the Dec. 20 or Jan. 3 agenda of the Planning Board.
Meanwhile Concerned Tremont Residents has appealed approvals of the Acadia Wilderness Lodge’s expansion of its first campground on Kelleytown Road and its second, larger campground off Rt. 102.
The appeals board is expected to schedule a “remote participation” meeting for Dec. 16 because of the number of residents expected.
Footnote:
The town has hired a new code enforcement officer who is the old code enforcement officer. John Larson, who served in the role from 2016-2020, is returning as the part-time CEO on Tuesdays and expanding to two days a week “in the future,” said town manager Dunbar.
The town also has a standing, emergency backup agreement with Mount Desert that can be activated at any time between the two town managers.
Larson works as the CEO in Southwest Harbor on Fridays and serves two other towns. He was the CEO when the planning board approved the controversial Acadia Wilderness Lodge on Kelleytown Road in 2019.
Lincoln’s Log
SOMESVILLE - Frenchman Bay United, the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory and its Science Café series are presenting a talk by Alexandra Morton, known as "the Jane Goodall of Canada" for her fight to save British Columbia’s wild salmon, Monday at 5. Jeri Bowers, director of public affairs and development at MDIBL and treasurer of Frenchman Bay United, said, “This important conversation comes at a critical time for Frenchman Bay and Maine as we face the rising challenge of industrial-scale aquaculture. We all can learn a lot from Alexandra Morton and her incredible fight against big aquaculture over the past 30 years.”
Morton will speak virtually from her home in British Columbia. A question and answer session will follow. This event is free and open to the public, but attendees must register in advance. To register go to https://mdibl.org/event/not-on-my-watch/. A Zoom link will be emailed to you 24 hours before the event.
Tribute: Dennis L. Smith
1944 - 2021
OTTER CREEK - Dennis L. Smith, 77, died Nov. 29, after a life filled with generosity and boundless energy. Born to Jane and Larry Smith of Otter Creek, he knew this village was his home, and the few times he lived elsewhere had him figuring out how to get back.
As a child in Otter Creek, he tracked a fox through the snow just to learn where it went and worked as a caddy in the summer. “I was twelve and some smart guys thought they could hire me to carry both their bags for the price of one. I did but decided I would never treat a caddy like that when I grew up.” Golf has been a life-long passion, and he has a reputation as a gentleman on island courses as well as those away. He is also a mean putter, and his first prize jars filled with red kidney beans from the Baked Bean Open were a source of pride.
When he was eight, he saw a boy pull a trout from the Otter Creek fire pond. He was mesmerized. For the next seventy years, he followed fish. President of the MDI Rod and Gun Club Dennis ran many an ice-fishing derby and was a persistent voice working for slot limits and rules aimed at healthy populations of game fish. In winter it was fishing through a hole in the ice. He brought his kids and his grandkids out and shared how to keep their lines untangled and their bait at the right depth. He was ever curious and wanted to know what the impact of stocking was, and how the size of populations changed. A familiar figure on the frozen ponds of Mount Desert Island he would ask every fisherman he saw for information and take scale samples to collect data.
When Dennis was an adult, his dentist encouraged him to try fly fishing, and a benevolent monster was born. An early supporter of catch and release, Dennis had his nay-sayers. When he fished Academy Pool on the Narraguagus, and put his fish back, he sometimes had folk throw rocks at him, or cast a hook his way. For years he attended meetings in Augusta as a member of the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Advisory Council to protect Atlantic salmon. He served on the board of the Downeast Salmon Federation, bringing ideas and donors to the organization, and in 2019 was honored with the Paddle Award.
He found his love of fishing young but got side-tracked by a love of girls. He attended Mt. Desert High School, where he played basketball. At one of the games, he met Joanne Robbins. They soon married and he became a family man. He attended the General Electric School of Plumbing and lived in Lynn, MA but moved back to Mount Desert Island as soon as he could. He bought a house in Otter Creek, with a couple of shower stalls, and developed the 24/7 coin-operated Hot Shower business which he ran for 58 years. There they raised three daughters, Tracy, Jennifer, and Penny, and ran a market in the basement of their home.
Dennis had many interests and was the master of most. His mantra was “never, never, never, never, give up” adapted from one of his heroes Winston Churchill, and he liked to point out there were four “nevers” in that quote. If you told him “You’ll never be able to do that” you’d better stand back. After he and his first wife parted, he went with a partner to ballroom dance classes, and his date was told “You’d better find a new partner.” Practicing with a broom in the kitchen and his never never never never give up attitude, he became a smooth mover on the dance floor. He later met Karen Zimmermann, and together they won dance competitions and fell in love. With Karen, he biked in Spain, hiked in the Azores, dove into cenotes in Mexico, visited friends in Iceland, explored much of Maine, made maple syrup, pickled pickerel, built osprey nests, tracked animals, reveled in winter, and had one adventure after another.
All along the way, he made friends. Sitting silent next to a stranger was not Dennis’ style. He would strike up a conversation, and before long they found common ground. He liked to say he mingled with paupers and kings and made friends with both. Dennis was known for his big smile and upbeat attitude. Many a crisis was met with a shrug and “If that’s the worst thing that happens today, we are doing ok.” After his house burned to the ground in 2010, he would hear a passing fire engine and say with a smile, “Not my house!”
He was an adventurous skier, and one watcher saw a flash of red sending up a plume of powder as it zig-zagged around trees through a glade. “Look at that deranged teenager,” the watcher exclaimed,” Yes, that was Dennis. Aspen was a yearly destination for skiing. He also made a yearly trip to Florida to visit his golf pro buddy Rob Gardner. He would call home with Barry White blasting, and Rob singing along in the background.
For some the cup is full or empty, but for Dennis it brimmed over, and he was always happy to share. Stranded motorists, beginning skiers, youngsters wanting to ice fish, Dennis gladly found the time to help them.
Diagnosed with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) in 2016 he never complained or became angry. He researched cures, tried many treatments, and lived every day to the fullest.
He danced from his wheelchair a few days before he died, snapping his fingers, and tapping his toes to Jerry Lee Lewis.
Dennis leaves behind his beautiful smile in the sky, a fish-catching fly he dubbed the “Rodney Dangerfield”, a recipe for pickled pickerel, and a big hole in the hearts of his wife Karen, brother Stephen Smith, sister Liz Iaquessa and husband John, daughters Tracy Hetzer and husband Rob, Jennifer Feltwell and husband David, Penelope Heiges and fiance Ty Redmon, Kymry Todhunter and husband Christian, eight grandchildren, Basil Mahaney and wife Lesley, Nigel Storer, and Duncan Hetzer, Stefanie, Juliet, and Sofia Feltwell, Sara and Ally Heiges, and three adored great-grandchildren, Hadley, William and Jack.
If you wish to donate in Dennis’ honor, please do so to the Downeast Salmon Federation, Beacon Hospice, Cure PSP, or an organization of your choice.
A celebration of his life will be held at noon on Saturday, January 1, 2022, at his home in Otter Creek with a bonfire, some indoor warmth, and any story you wish to share.
Condolences may be expressed at www.jordanfernald.com
Tribute: Richard James Treseler
1961 - 2021
Richard James Treseler, 60, passed away suddenly Dec. 2 while working at a job he loved in Southwest Harbor. He was born October 28, 1961, and lived in West Roxbury and Roslindale, MA. until moving to Surry, ME. in 2019.
Rick graduated from Boston College High School, completed a postgraduate at Phillips Exeter Academy and earned a bachelor’s degree from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware Ohio.
Rick was the beloved Uncle of many nieces and nephews. He loved the outdoors and was a certified mountain climber who guided many people up Mount Washington in the winter. He was a gifted artist and hardscape mason. He loved the hunt for old treasures which he then sold in an antique shop in Cherryfield, ME. Once you met Rick you were a friend for life.
He is survived by his beloved wife Rebecca Andreasson; his two stepchildren Laura McIrney and Julia Milano; two step grandchildren Olivia McIrney and Andrew McIrney; seven siblings, Frederick C. Treseler III of MA, Jean T. Irvine of ME, Edward G. Treseler of MA, John F. Treseler of MD, Paul M. Treseler of MA, James R Treseler of NY and Mary E. Treseler of MA. He was predeceased by his parents Margaret Mary Treseler and Frederick Charles Treseler Jr.; his brother Robert Treseler; his nephew Matthew James Irvine and his beloved dog Madeline Rose.
In lieu of flowers, please send donations in Rick’s memory to the Maine Seacoast Mission, 6 Old Firehouse Ln #600 Northeast Harbor, Maine 04662.
Arrangements by Jordan-Fernald Funeral Homes, Ellsworth.