The Municipal Review Committee recently revealed a plan to build a new dump in Argyle Township or Greenbush.
The Municipal Review Committee does not possess the legal authority to build or own a new landfill, has provided insufficient evidence for the need to expand capacity (this has already been refuted by the Penobscot Energy Recovery Company and Maine’s manager of state-owned landfills), gave scant detail surrounding the project (asking us to trust in technology that doesn’t yet exist), and has ignored Maine’s waste management hierarchy.
The Municipal Review Committee admitted that the only siting criterion was a location within a 30-mile radius of Bangor (the largest garbage producer represented by the Municipal Review Committee), and that prior to beginning the permitting process, had not even visited the sites or asked for input from local residents.
The Municipal Review Committee claims we’ll benefit from lower tipping fees, but building a new dump simply to reduce disposal costs provides a perverse incentive to produce more garbage. We would produce less garbage if we encouraged recycling and increased the costs of disposal, especially for out-of-state garbage destined for Maine’s existing landfills.
Furthermore, the Municipal Review Committee has demonstrated a fundamental ignorance of basic environmental science that should be required of officials entrusted with waste disposal. The Argyle site is in the middle of a low-lying, flood-prone, forested wetland that drains into Birch Stream and the Penobscot River. Given the hydrology, topography and geology of the landscape, pollution of our groundwater and surface waters is inevitable. Argyle’s forests and wetlands provide valuable habitat for fish and wildlife and help buffer the effects of flood, drought and climate change, and all Mainers depend on these healthy ecosystems to sustain ourselves through hunting, fishing, foraging and farming.
Millions of dollars have been spent to reverse centuries of abuse to the Penobscot River by removing dams, improving water quality and restoring decimated populations of sea-run fish. Destroying these ecosystems for a dump defies common sense and takes Maine in the wrong direction.
My fellow Argyle residents and I are vehemently opposed to this plan and, alongside our Penobscot Indian and Greenbush neighbors, are fighting back. However, Argyle is an unorganized township with no municipal government and no representation on the Municipal Review Committee’s board. Simply put, we are the path of least resistance on the Municipal Review Committee’s agenda to build and own its own dump, and the Municipal Review Committee intends to steamroll us and force our 277 residents to accept garbage produced by 187 towns across the state. Argyle serves as an example to our neighbors that the Municipal Review Committee will not hesitate to force its will on any community if it promotes its agenda.
Clearly, this is the “tyranny of the majority” that John Adams warned us about. Were the tables turned, we would not force our garbage on our unwilling neighbors. I’m confident that our neighbor communities, upon hearing the facts surrounding this proposed dump, will join us in opposition. I urge my neighbors throughout the Penobscot watershed to join Argyle and Greenbush to support us in our fight against this irresponsible and short-sighted plan.
Steve Coghlan of Argyle Township is associate professor of freshwater fisheries ecology in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology at the University of Maine.