Letter to the editor: State-owned landfill must be appropriately prioritized

Suddenly everyone has become a geotechnical expert on the properties of sewage sludge and landfill waste.

Casella told lawmakers last year that banning both sewage sludge land application and out of state demolition debris would both adversely impact landfill operations. Now, suddenly, those same lawmakers with no geotechnical engineering knowledge have become experts.

Sorry, playing with waste flow has real world applications and the laws of physics apply to all. Back in 1989, two geotechnical engineering firms were working at the Norridgewock landfill, the landfill’s primary firm and a new firm. Employees of the new firm were concerned for their safety due to a potential slope failure. They asked the primary firm to review their slope stability calculations. The primary firm told them to butt out. Some months later, the landfill cell failed. Early in the morning, over a two-minute period, a landslide covered seven acres. Luckily no one was hurt.

Lawmakers need to do less pontificating on something they know nothing about and instead think about the impact of their decisions. With seven of the 10 highest paid state employees working at the state psychiatric hospital, all making more than $225,000 a year, maybe the state should sell that to a private operator to run it at a lower cost. Then the state can take over operations of the Juniper Ridge Landfill and pay those engineers and operators as much as the psychiatric doctors since they have a much bigger impact on Maine’s economy.

Carlton Wilcox
New Gloucester