Brian Oliver, Casella vice president, does a masterful job of diverting attention from the issue at hand in a recent Press Herald guest editorial (“Another View: Closing Maine waste ‘loophole’ would have unintended results,” Oct. 16). His response to an Oct. 7 Press Herald editorial focuses on ash from waste-to-energy incinerators, which makes up only a small percentage of the waste coming to our state-owned Juniper Ridge landfill.
Our main issue is with construction and demolition debris, mostly from Massachusetts, which makes up a large amount of the waste coming to Juniper Ridge (over 200,000 tons in some years!).
Under current conditions, a building can be torn down in Massachusetts, but the debris cannot be landfilled in that state. Instead, many large truckloads of the stuff come to Maine; once a single 2×4 is removed as “recycling,” the remainder can be ground up and sent to Juniper Ridge, much of it as “fines for daily cover. ”
That is why we need a rule change – to protect the valuable landfill space we have left in our state for waste that is truly from Maine, not from out of state.
Chuck Leithiser
Old Town
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