A Biddeford City Council public hearing on a proposed plan to buy Maine Energy Recovery Co. has been moved to a larger location.

The hearing will begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday in City Theater, adjacent to City Hall on Main Street. The meeting was moved from council chambers in anticipation of a large turnout.

City officials scheduled the hearing to receive feedback on a plan announced last week to buy Maine Energy’s trash-to-energy plant, which has been controversial since it opened 25 years ago.

Under an agreement between Biddeford and Casella Waste Systems, the owner of the MERC plant, the city will buy the plant for $6.65 million by Nov. 15. It will stop operating within six months of the purchase and will be demolished six months after that.

After the plant is dismantled, all that will remain is the smokestack, which holds up cell phone towers that generate nearly $150,000 a year in fees. That money will help cover the purchase price.

City councilors are expected to vote on the proposal on July 31.

The $6.65 million, to be paid over 20 years, shouldn’t affect the city’s property-tax rate, according to City Manager John Bubier. The city plans to pay for the MERC deal with money coming from the cellphone towers and taxes generated in a special district established at Biddeford Crossing — the huge retail complex near the Maine Turnpike — and the downtown mill area.

The annual payments will start at $150,000 a year and climb to $350,000 a year. Biddeford will also pay higher fees to dispose of its trash, first at MERC and then at a Casella Waste Systems recycling and trash processing plant to be built in Westbrook.

Biddeford’s trash fee increases from the current $47 a ton to $55.

That higher rate should be offset by a curbside recycling program that will begin in the summer of 2013 and reduce the amount of trash the city generates, according to city officials.

The proposed purchase and sale agreement is posted on the city’s website, www.biddefordmaine.org.
 

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