LEWISTON – The group reviewing a possible landfill deal may not get the answers they need in time to put the matter before the voters, they admitted Monday.

“We may end up sending the message to the council that we’re not ready to make a recommendation yet,” said Robert Reed, chairman of the city’s Solid Waste task force. “And if it means we can’t put it on the ballot, too bad, so sad. It may have to wait.”

Five members of the panel met for almost three hours Monday, first with nearly 100 residents, neighbors and opponents of the deal and later by themselves.

Member Leo Larochelle said the group still has questions to answer concerning the landfill – specifically, how much control the city would have over the private management company, Casella Solid Waste, what kind of environmental impacts the deal would have and what the finished landfill would look like. He said he’d continue researching, reporting back to the other members by Friday.

Reed said the group would probably decide Friday what to tell the City Council. Councilors are tentatively scheduled to vote on the landfill deal at Tuesday’s meeting. If they approve, they’ll send it to the voters on November’s ballot.

“And according to state law, you need to set the ballot at least 60 days before the election,” Reed said.

The task force is reviewing a potential deal given to city councilors in June. The new agreement would have Casella pay the city up to $2.5 million the first year, plus pay a minimum of $800,000 per year in monitoring and host fees. Casella would also take over the KTI Biofuels incineration facility off Plourde Parkway and convert it into a sorting facility for construction and demolition debris within four years.

Based on the task force’s financial models, the deal would give the city about $47 million over 30 years. That would be enough to take about $100 off of the average Lewiston property tax bill.

But it would mean a drastically shorter life for the landfill. The agreement would leave the landfill full at the end of 30 years. That same space, which includes existing landfill cells and years worth of expansion, would last the city for 620 years at current rates.

Opponents

Critics continued to assail the deal, saying there are too many questions unanswered to let the matter go to the voters.

“I don’t get the need for the big rush here,” said state Rep. Elaine Makas, D-Lewiston. “Nobody is in competition with us for this deal. Why does it have to go to vote now? Why can’t we put it off until a later election?”

Residents of Auburn also attended, saying they were afraid what the deal would do to their city.

“The idea of this going to a vote is frightening,” said Tammi Grieshaber of 100 Stony Ridge Road, Auburn. “Once you do this, we won’t have the opportunity to get any questions answered. Once it happens, all of our concerns become a moot point.”

Two members of the Lewiston City Council also attended, and both said they’d vote against putting the contract on the ballot. Ward 4’s Ron Jean and Ward 5’s Paul Samson both said it needed more time.

But members of the task force said they were not giving up. Member Peter Grenier said the group has been studying Lewiston’s landfill management issues for 18 months, long before this deal came up.

“We may have information you don’t,” Grenier said. The group met with landfill managers and city leaders around New England and heard only good things.

But critics jeered, saying Grenier was only allowed to meet with people Casella approved.

That angered task force member Ronald Comeau.

“They can say things we know are not true, but when we come back with facts, they sneer and boo,” he said.

Polling

Critics also accused Casella of using telephone push polls to skew the issue. At least 12 people said they had been called by a firm calling itself Critical Insights, asking them to take part in a 20-minute poll on Lewiston issues. Rep. Makas said she was one of the people, and the questions were misleading.

“They asked if we would approve of an environmentally safe landfill deal,” she said. “I just don’t want them to come back before a vote saying 75 percent of Lewiston residents support the deal because of unfair polling.”

Task force members and city officials said they were unaware of any polls being taken.