Work has started to permanently shut down a dormant landfill that for decades took waste from Bucksport’s former paper mill, three years after the Maine Department of Environmental Protection ordered it to close after finding it wasn’t complying with its operating permit.
The 109-acre property off River Road/Route 15 is owned by Montreal-based scrap metal company American Iron & Metal, which bought the Verso paper mill and its holdings, including the landfill and three area dams, following the mill’s 2014 closure.
The long-awaited work likely marks the end of AIM’s apparent efforts to delay an end-of-year closure deadline, which have fed local frustration and distrust. The landfill and a dam the company is seeking to abandon have become complicated and costly mill legacies for the town to navigate.
Although officials and concerned citizens wanted stricter environmental requirements for the landfill closure to protect the town and Penobscot River — the site will continue discharging untreated, PFAS-containing leachate into the river, for one — the work has been met as a positive sign. But doubts remain that the company will meet the deadline to finish it.
“The date has not changed. That’s all I can speak to,” Town Manager Jacob Gran said at a council meeting last week. “Whether that’s realistic or not, I think we probably know the answer to that, but the date has not changed.”
A pre-construction meeting was held Aug. 12 with Orono-based contractor Sargent, Madison-based environmental contractor RTD Enterprises, engineering firm Haley Ward and the Department of Environmental Protection, department spokesperson David Madore said Monday.
Sargent was installing fencing along the landfill’s northern slope and construction work was expected to begin “immediately,” Gran said. Crews are expected on-site during weekdays for the foreseeable future.
Testing of soil sources has started, according to Madore, and Sargent expects to start grading slopes, stripping topsoil, rough grading and possibly placing sand in the next two weeks.
Sargent is unable to provide project updates because of its contract terms, a spokesperson said. American Iron & Metal did not return a request for comment.
Engineers estimated last year that the closure would cost more than $13.4 million, the Department of Environmental Protection previously said. Sargent did not provide a contract cost because the project is private.
The 26 open acres remaining have been largely unused in recent years because the landfill’s license only allows it to accept wood waste and construction or demolition debris generated on the mill site by its owners; the mill site has been divided and sold. Other sections of the landfill have already been covered and closed.
When it ordered the closure three summers ago, the state listed issues such as providing annual proof of liability insurance, regular inspections and water quality test results, and maintenance work and inspections of parts of the leachate collection system as required by its license.
The metal company also had not closed the landfill’s north slope despite the state telling it to do so since 2014, according to the environmental protection department.
In recent years, the company unsuccessfully tried to reopen the landfill in partnership with the town to accept waste and later tried to sell the site.
Closure work was once expected to begin last summer. Instead, in September 2025, American Iron & Metal proposed reopening it to accept mercury-contaminated waste dredged as part of remediation efforts on the Penobscot, a potential project years away from reality. The town council declined to consider it because of the company’s history in town.
In February, the company explored early steps to transfer the landfill license – or possibly amend it, according to the town, which sent a strongly worded letter to the state saying any effort to keep the site open would be met with “immediate and forceful opposition.”
The company declined to comment on those allegations at the time, and later selected Orono-based contractor Sargent for closure work in May.
Closure involves a cover system of layers of sand, compacted soil, and topsoil for open areas on the landfill’s crown, sideslope and north slope, according to state documents. The crown work would also include synthetic lining.
Closure also requires a gas management system, decommissioning of a leachate storage pond, adding a system to manage overflow and ongoing environmental monitoring.
American Iron has a standby trust agreement and surety bond for the work and monitoring, according to the closure plan. That means funds will be available for the project, up to the bond amount, if the company itself becomes unable to pay.
The company will also have to file a deed restriction to provide record of the landfill and say any future use can’t disturb the integrity of the cover, liner, containment or monitoring systems without environmental protection approval.
The town and concerned citizens had sought stricter closure requirements, including synthetic lining on the slopes and treatment for PFAS-containing leachate going into the river.
The department is requiring leachate to be tested for PFAS and will continue to monitor data, Madore said in May.
The landfill’s outflow pipe, which is suspended above the river’s surface, has recently been a focus area for Maine Maritime Academy researchers, who found high levels of the chemicals below it and hope to do further testing. That’s part of an emerging field of science exploring how the chemicals behave and affect organisms in marine environments like Penobscot Bay.
If American Iron & Metal misses the deadline, the environmental protection department would “select an appropriate course of action” based on the state’s noncompliance response guidelines, Madore previously said.
Responses can range from a letter of warning to joint enforcement with federal, state and local entities, such as the state attorney general’s office.
“AIM has every intention of meeting any DEP-mandated requirement,” project manager David Bryant said in February when asked if it would meet the deadline.
The company also owns a dam on Silver Lake in Bucksport, which it’s seeking to abandon along with two others in neighboring towns where quasi-municipal watershed management districts have formed in hopes of taking them over.
Conversations about possible transfers are ongoing, and Bucksport hopes to have residents vote this November whether to take ownership of the Silver Lake dam, according to environmental protection documents.
