Every day when I drive to my office on Saco Island, I view a smoke stack sometimes billowing smoke and God knows what else.

This giant smokestack, which dominates the skyline of the twin cities of Biddeford/Saco, is the visible part of a waste-to-energy incinerator that is one of four such operating solid waste disposal facilities within Maine.

Though some see the smoke- stack as an eyesore, it serves as a reminder of the enormous challenge Maine has faced in the last two decades in attempting to solve one of the state’s most troubling – and, at times, least visible – environmental and public health issues: solid waste.

The disposal of solid waste was, for many years, a hidden crisis quite literally buried beneath the ground and conveniently forgotten. Over the past three decades, however, solid waste emerged as a problem that threatened not only the environment but also the financial resources of every community in the state heading into the 21st Century.

The smokestack reminds me that, after a number of years of seeing how promising new technology and ambitious public policy initiatives have met this problem head on, this is no time to be complacent.

In the 1980s, these kinds of waste-to-energy facilities emerged as the technology that many believed would make the state’s far-reaching and ambitious solid waste management program a success.

The Maine Energy Recovery plant, known by most contemptibly as MERC, came into existence just as the Maine Legislature was in the throes of grappling with what had become a critical concern in the 1970s and 1980s – how to better manage and safely dispose of the ever growing volume of solid waste generated in Maine’s municipalities.

So how did this controversial, poorly designed and sometimes smelly facility ever get built in the middle of downtown Biddeford-Saco in the mid-80s?

The answer is a complicated one.

Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, the long-held notions and practices of solid waste disposal in Maine were under siege.

The practice of open burning was banned largely due to the wave of state and federal environmental laws and pressure by environmental interest groups. Later, attention switched focus from the air to the ground as subsurface and open water resources began showing the effects of years of landfill seepage.

Landfill use turned to more sophisticated and expensive technology as environmental laws and regulations grew and proliferated around the ground and water pollution problem. Ultimately, open landfills were prohibited and scheduled to be phased out and closed.

The Maine laws that grew out of these problems were enacted both to discourage the generation of waste and to deal with the environmental problems waste caused.

The handwriting of state and federal lawmakers was on the wall: solid waste needed to be reduced, treated and disposed of in smaller, safer doses to avoid an even more critical problem in the future – simply running out of sites to put it.

That “future” has arrived.

Solid waste disposal was traditionally a municipal issue and a municipal problem. That notion changed drastically in the 1960s and 1970s when pollutants that had been carelessly dumped in the ground began to seep into wells and aquifers, contaminating entire municipal and regional water systems.

On top of that landfill capacity was shrinking state wide.

Solid waste became, and is now, a state wide problem. In response to this, solid waste management statutes that dovetailed with environmental laws and policies were enacted at the State House to stem this rising tide of solid waste related problems and, at the same time, create a solid waste management policy.

As far-sighted as that policy was, much still needs to be done.

Maine lawmakers enacted three principal solid waste management statutes during this period. Although the statutes are distinct and separate and passed at different times, they all are tied to the same underlying principles and policies, including recycling, waste reduction and assisting municipalities in implementing effective new technologies.

Against this back drop, the state enthusiastically promoted the development of waste-to-energy technologies.

A combination of private and public investment pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into such facilities in Portland RWS (Regional Waste System), Auburn (Mid Maine Waste Action Corporation), Orrington (Penobscot Energy Recovery) and Biddeford (MERC).

These incinerators have provided a service in reducing the volume of municipal solid waste while producing energy for residential and commercial customers. However, problems have arisen at all four of these incinerators. Two stand out as being problematic and controversial.

The privately owned MERC plant has been the most controversial, in part because of its location in the heart of downtown Biddeford and suspect design technology, internal financial problems, ongoing noncompliance of license environmental emission standards and ongoing litigation from the host communities.

To a much lesser degree, the RWS facility also faces significant issues of a spiraling debt, rising costs and its general financial and organizational predicament. RWS is looking for a way to operate cost effectively, so that the member communities are not financially over burdened and unable to effectively meet there own solid waste disposal requirements.

The State Planning Office, charged with analyzing and preparing a plan for solid waste management, last reported to the Joint Standing Committee on Natural Resources in December of 2002. The SPO report included some significant findings that should raise an immediate red flag to lawmakers.

The report outlined that municipal solid waste incinerators received nearly 850,000 tons of municipal solid waste, of which nearly 200,000 tons were from out of state. Seventy-five percent (150,000 tons) of the out of state waste is processed about 500 yards from my office. In addition, incinerator byproducts are contributing significantly to the rapid decrease in disposal capacity at the landfill that takes that type of waste. The report concluded that the total remaining disposal capacity at Maine’s landfills is sufficient for only 10 more years.

Today with health care, budget shortfalls and property tax relief the focal points of debate in the Legislature, we can expect municipal solid waste disposal and management will take center stage.
Barry Hobbins is a Saco attorney and political analyst who was a state representative, state senator and chair of the Maine Democratic Party. He can be reached by writing to him at Hobbins & Gardner, LLC, 110 Main St., Suite 1508, Saco, Maine 04072-2895 or by e-mail at [email protected]