Town crews cleaned up a “fairly big mess” of waste on the Yeaton Swamp Road.

OXFORD – Selectmen on Thursday will discuss whether to invest in a system for taking demolition waste at the Oxford Transfer Station.

The problem of off-road dumping of waste items has been getting worse since the town started charging for disposal of bulky waste items, said Town Manager Mike Huston.

But even if the fees were dropped, he said, illegal dumping would still be a problem. “There’s a tradition in Maine to get rid of trash anyway you can,” he said.

Selectmen may want to meet with the Solid Waste Committee to discuss unresolved issues at the transfer station, or hold a public hearing, according to Thursday’s agenda. The meeting gets underway at 6:30 p.m. at the town office.

There’s currently no funding in the budget for either building a concrete pad for the demolition waste, or supplying rolloff containers, Huston said.

“We need to get a handle on what we’re going to do,” he said. On Tuesday, town crews cleaned up a “fairly big mess” of illegally dumped waste on the Yeaton Swamp Road, he said. The culprit, which Huston declined to name, has agreed to pay the town $500 in restitution to cover the cleanup costs.

In a separate transfer station issue, Huston said he has talked to a Department of Environmental Protection official since allegations were made at the last meeting that the town was out of compliance on monitoring for methane gas.

“It is a non-issue,” Huston said. He said DEP official Bill Butler has never told him that methane gas seeping up under the dump could be a problem, as was alleged by Solid Waste Committee member Lois Pike.

“There’s been nothing with regard to the methane, and no one has told me we’re going to be fined,” Huston said. The state agency still has some remaining “paperwork” issues the town needs to comply with concerning the asbestos containment area, he said.

The town also needs to spend $5,500 from capital improvement funds to place gravel over two feet of impervious clay known as till pads, a job unrelated to the asbestos containment project begun last year after a DEP inspection.

Also at Thursday’s meeting, selectmen will open bids for tree-cutting and award a contract, and finalize details of this year’s paving program.


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