Brewer closes landfill to outlying communities
Friday, May 20, 2005

BREWER - Old furniture, building debris, brush and lawn waste from outside city limits will have to be taken to another facility now that Brewer has closed its landfill to outlying communities, Ken Locke, Brewer director of environmental services, said Thursday.

"The landfill is essentially 90 percent full, and we can't find another area for a site for a new landfill," he said. "We decided to give the remaining space to Brewer residents."

The landfill closed to outlying residents on May 10.

The change affects residents in Eddington, Orrington, Dedham, Lucerne and Holden, who typically use Brewer's landfill, Locke said.

With the reduction in use, the 4-acre landfill on Wiswell Road is expected to last three to five more years, which will be used to look for another site, Locke said.

"That's just an estimate," he said.

One obstacle to the city finding another site is the many regulations tied to landfills and the state's environmental laws, Locke said.

Brewer's landfill opened in 1992 and originally had a capacity of 100,000 cubic yards.

"We did get a vertical expansion a year ago to 125,000 cubic yards, which did help," the director of environmental services said.

Since the change last week, area communities have been informing their residents about what they can do with their landfill materials.

At Tuesday's Eddington selectmen's meeting, Town Manager Russell Smith informed the board that residents will be able to take their trash to the Pine Tree Landfill in Hampden on Saturday and Sunday. No permit is needed, he said.

In addition to the Hampden landfill, Waste Management, on Dirigo Drive in Brewer, is another business that accepts landfill waste.

Pine Tree, located at 358 Emerson Mill Road, is open to all Maine residents from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends and charges $84 a ton to discard the materials.

Waste Management is open to the public 7 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m.-noon on the first Saturday of each month.

Costs to dispose at Waste Management vary depending on the item, but building and demolition debris will run residents 6 cents per pound. There is also a $1.50 environmental fee for loads weighing less than two tons and a $3 fee for those that weigh in excess of two tons.

The closing of Brewer's landfill to residents outside the city only affects Eddington residents who are disposing of non-household materials, Smith said.

Curbside pickup of regular household trash will continue in Eddington along with recycling twice a month, the town manager said.

A copyright article from the Bangor Daily News, Friday, May 20, 2005.