The Juniper Ridge Landfill cannot proceed with its planned expansion and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection must redo its study to allow the expansion, a judge ruled Wednesday.
The Maine DEP did not complete “critical” fact finding before it allowed the Old Town landfill to expand, Penobscot County Superior Court Justice Bruce Mallonee ruled in a 17-page opinion.
Penobscot Nation and the Conservation Law Foundation sued the Maine DEP in November 2024 over the proposed expansion. The Maine DEP decided Oct. 2, 2024, there is a public benefit to the expansion and expanding the landfill is not inconsistent with environmental justice.
The expansion would add the equivalent of nearly nine Empire State Buildings to the landfill, advocates said.
The decision comes as Penobscot County is in the midst of a trash crisis. Juniper Ridge accepts trash from dozens of Maine municipalities, as well as 25,000 tons of waste from out-of-state. The landfill has a capacity of 10 million cubic yards and will run out of room in 2028 if it continues accepting trash at the current rate, Casella Waste System said previously.
The Maine DEP’s draft approval allowed the state-owned Juniper Ridge Landfill an 11.9-million-cubic-yard expansion.
The Maine DEP must reevaluate the proposed expansion and submit a revised public benefit determination within 75 days, the order said.
The department is reviewing the opinion and “carefully weighing our options moving forward,” spokesperson David Madore said.
Jeff Weld, vice president of communications for Casella, likewise said his company has received the court’s decision and is “in the process of reviewing it.”
The DEP must consider the environmental burden the landfill places on the Penobscot Nation and any impact between the tribe and its “intimate relationship with the Penobscot River,” the opinion said.
A “substantial public benefit” is necessary to allow the expansion of a landfill. The foundation challenged two of the four requirements the state must prove to allow the expansion, including if the facility “is not inconsistent with ensuring environmental justice” and if the expansion is consistent with the state’s waste management plan.
Maine will “simply have no place to put a vast volume of waste” if Juniper Ridge cannot take it, and that looming trash crisis has led the state to view that issue as definitive during the appeal, Mallonee wrote.
Despite that “urgent reality,” Mallonee wrote that he cannot read the laws the same as the Maine DEP and nothing gives more weight to one of the four requirements.
The state had to consider environmental justice while deciding if the landfill could expand. It is the first test of a 2021 state law that says all people have the right to be protected from pollution and “to live in and enjoy a clean and healthful environment.”
Penobscot Nation has an intimate relationship with the Penobscot River and surrounding area, something the Maine DEP did not analyze while considering environmental justice, Mallonee wrote. The department focused on environmental chemistry, showing it is not equipped to assess the complex cultural and historical factors, the opinion said.
“For years, the Penobscot Nation has warned that this landfill endangers their health, river, and sovereignty,” said Alexandra St. Pierre, Vice President for Environmental Justice at the Conservation Law Foundation. “This decision sends a powerful message: their lived experience matters, and environmental justice cannot be ignored.”
The Maine DEP must consider the “cumulative environmental burdens borne” by the tribe, including other landfills near it and their relationship with the river, to allow the state to find the proposed expansion fulfills environmental justice, the opinion said.
“For generations, we have spoken about the many impacts our community fights against at once — on our health, our lands, and the Penobscot River, the oldest citizen of our Nation,” Penobscot Nation Chief Kirk Francis said. “This ruling affirms that those burdens must be taken seriously. We hope it signals a shift toward decisions that listen more closely to Indigenous voices and consider the full picture of the harm our communities face.”
The other main dispute in the lawsuit is if the DEP should require Casella to dry wastewater treatment plant sludge before it is put in the landfill. Casella mixes wet sludge with construction and demolition debris and oversized bulky waste.
Drying sludge would reduce the amount of waste going into the landfill because it would not require out of state debris to stabilize the wet sludge, the foundation said.
There are many pages and public comments dedicated to the necessity of drying sludge but there is no evidence the Maine DEP “ever actually considered” requiring that treatment, Mallonee wrote.
The Maine DEP must consider the necessity of drying sludge on site when it redetermines the public benefit, Mallonee said.