WARREN, Maine — The removal of a mountain of fiber wastes that has plagued the town for more than 15 years will begin in April, but the promise of local manufacturing jobs to turn the material into composite lumber has been dropped.
Triumvirate Environmental Inc. of Somerville, Massachusetts, signed a contract Wednesday with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection for the removal of 27,000 tons of fiber materials, according to Warren Town Manager Elaine Clark. Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Patricia Aho met Wednesday night with the town’s Board of Selectmen to offer more details.
But Clark said initial plans to have Triumvirate build a manufacturing facility at the site off Route 90 in Warren to produce composite lumber out of the wastes was dropped because of the cost and timing required to extend three-phase power to the lot.
Telephone messages left with Triumvirate were not returned Wednesday.
Last October, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection announced it had selected Triumvirate to recycle the fiber wastes into composite lumber, cleaning up the massive mountains of wastes and creating up to 16 jobs.
But town officials Wednesday night voiced excitement with the expected cleanup.
“This is a tremendous thing for the town of Warren,” said board member Ed LaFlamme. “I will be cautiously optimistic until I see the first truckload leave.”
The cleanup is expected to take 30 months to complete.
The 70-acre site on Route 90 in Warren had been the home of the former R.D. Outfitters rifle range. When the owner of that facility brought in the material during the late 1990s, he said it was to be used as berms to stop bullets from going off the property. But opponents questioned whether he was simply using the property as an unlicensed dump to make money by accepting material from the former Gates Formed Fibre of Auburn.
The Department of Environmental Protection estimated the rifle range owner — Steamship Navigation, whose principals were Randy and Cathy Dunican — received $1 million to have the fiber wastes dumped on their property.
The Department of Environmental Protection ultimately went to court to take control of the site after Steamship said it had no money to complete the berm project, which would have consisted of covering the fiber with dirt. The Department of Environmental Protection went to court and received $410,000 from the former owner to assist with cleanup costs.
Clark said the cost to bring three-phase power to the road front of the Route 90 site would have cost $427,000 but also would have taken longer than Triumvirate had wanted. There also would have been an additional cost to the company to bring the power from the road to where the building would have been.
Instead, the company will truck the material to a facility it has in Pennsylvania to do the same process.
The town manager said beginning in April, the Massachusetts company will begin removing 84,000 pounds of fiber waste each week. That will eventually ramp up to 840,000 pounds per week.
The material is considered hazardous because it is highly flammable and difficult to put out if ignited. The town of Warren has been working for more than the past 15 years to get the wastes removed.
The town has declined for more than a decade to foreclose on the property, even though the owner has not paid property taxes. Town officials have been fearful of taking over the property and being held liable for any damages caused by the wastes on site.