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John Krueger of Northport is a former division director of licensing and enforcement at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and former director of the State of Maine Health and Environmental Testing Laboratory.
Our society’s decisions about the wastes associated with the Juniper Ridge Landfill (JRL) reveal something larger about how we manage the byproducts of modern life. Waste does not simply disappear; it accumulates, moves, and eventually settles somewhere.
Recently, in a Bangor courtroom, the discussion centered on environmental justice — on who benefits from our disposal choices and who bears the harm. As we begin to confront the toxicity of PFAS‑contaminated leachate (the leakage of pollutants from a landfill), we find ourselves facing a new set of difficult questions about responsibility, risk, and the fate of these persistent chemicals.
Understanding and deciding how to handle leachate from landfills that contain PFAS is no simple task. PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) is not one chemical but a family of more than two dozen compounds, each with its own behavior, mobility, and resistance to treatment. Maine’s “sum of six” health standard of 20 ng/L was created to simplify analysis by focusing on six PFAS compounds relevant to drinking water. No one is planning to drink landfill leachate, but the standard provides a reference point.
In reality, the Juniper Ridge Landfill leachate contains many more PFAS compounds with a combined concentration roughly 150 times higher in total PFAS compounds than the drinking‑water limit. The highest concentrations of PFAS compounds in JRL leachate are short‑chain PFAS that are not included in the “sum of six,” and these short‑chain compounds are also the hardest to remove consistently.
A pilot study conducted on JRL leachate demonstrates this clearly: while treatment can reduce some PFAS, short‑chain compounds remain stubbornly persistent. The study highlights the gap between regulators metrics and the full chemical reality.
Another layer of complexity involves where treatment or disposal might occur, and where treated or untreated leachate ultimately returns to the Penobscot River. Juniper Ridge Landfill produces roughly 17 million gallons of leachate per year. Transporting that volume requires approximately nine 5,000‑gallon tanker truckloads daily. Pine Tree Landfill (PTL) in Hampden adds its own leachate. The chemistry of the two landfills is strikingly similar: both contain high concentrations of short‑chain PFAS in their leachate that are not included in the “sum of six,” and both pose the same treatment challenges.
This brings us to the proposed expansion of leachate storage at the landfill in Hampden. PTL is the successor facility to the Sawyer landfill/Sawyer Environmental Recovery Facility, located on the same Hampden site.
The Pine Tree Landfill already has a direct pipeline to the Bangor wastewater treatment plant, which does not remove PFAS. Increasing storage capacity at PTL could permit both the Pine Tree and Juniper Ridge landfill leachate to be held, mixed, and potentially pumped directly to the Bangor wastewater treatment plant and discharged to the river without PFAS removal. While treatment options are being studied, the infrastructure being proposed could make bypassing treatment easier than performing it. That is the structural risk at the heart of this permit.
A public hearing before the Hampden Planning Board on Tuesday offers an important opportunity for residents to participate and to understand this application. Citizens can ask about spill prevention, control, and countermeasure plans for storage of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency PFAS designated hazardous substances, about contingency planning, about treatment reliability, and about what safeguards will prevent untreated PFAS‑laden leachate from being disposed of improperly. They can ask whether treatment will be required, not merely planned.
In the end, any decision about Juniper Ridge leachate must confront a simple truth: Without clear, enforceable commitments to PFAS treatment, expanded storage at Hampden could become a pathway for untreated waste to reach the Penobscot River. The choices we make now will determine who bears the burden of these chemicals for generations to come.