OWLS HEAD, Maine — Residents of two midcoast towns last week rejected ecomaine of Portland to dispose of their solid waste, but the southern Maine firm has won the backing of two other municipalities in the region.
At a special town meeting Monday evening, Owls Head residents voted 18-0 to send their trash to ecomaine when the current contract with the Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. ends in 2018.
Last week, Thomaston residents at their annual town meeting also voted to send their waste to ecomaine.
This followed votes by residents at Camden’s and Rockport’s annual town meetings to not support their select board recommendations to go with the southern Maine company. Instead, many residents in Camden and Rockport urged their boards to reconsider contracting with Maryland-based Fiberight LLC.
Fiberight wants to build a $69 million facility in Hampden that would use technology to change organic materials in trash into biogas after the glass, metal, paper and plastic are recycled. The Municipal Review Committee, a nonprofit representing the trash disposal needs of 187 Maine cities and towns largely in northern and eastern Maine, has recommended Fiberight replace PERC when the current trash contract expires.
Fiberight supporters believe that option would be more environmentally friendly.
Thomaston and Owls Head are part of a three-town waste cooperative along with South Thomaston. South Thomaston residents voted at their annual town meeting in March to go with Fiberight.
South Thomaston officials said at the March town meeting that if the other two towns in the three-town cooperative voted for ecomaine, then another local town meeting or a joint three-town cooperative meeting would need to be held to vote on whether South Thomaston would remain in the cooperative
Rockland City Council voted in April to support the city manager’s recommendation to contract with ecomaine. Rockland is the largest community in Knox County.