GORHAM – Thousands of tons of debris piled at a padlocked recycling site in Gorham could be trucked to an Old Town landfill if a proposal by R.J. Grondin & Sons is approved.
Under a proposal still in court mediation, the Gorham construction company would remove the debris and acquire the Plan-It Recycling property. Grondin is one of the mortgage holders on the property.
At issue is an estimated 27,000 cubic yards of debris left piled at the closed Plan-It Recycling plant in the Gorham Industrial Park, near the Westbrook city line.
If approved, the plan would negate an earlier, controversial proposal to bury the rubble in a long-sealed town landfill off Huston Road.
Neighbors of the Gorham landfill closed 15 years are rejoicing.
“I want to christen the first truck heading north,” Brenda Stoudt, of Huston Road, said Tuesday. “That was the best news anyone could ask for.”
The latest proposal has approval of the Gorham Town Council. However, warned Town Manager David Cole at a council meeting last week, “It’s not a done deal. We still have a court case to finish off.”
The town, claiming Plan-It Recycling had violated rules concerning piles of recyclable material, filed a lawsuit last year to force compliance.
A court-issued temporary restraining order in November 2010 included requirements that Plan-It Recycling put $200,000 in escrow and remove 600 tons of material more than it received every two weeks, according to the town earlier this year.
Subsequently, the town felt Plan-It Recycling was unable to fulfill terms of the order. Following complaints by the town and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, a judge in January 2011 temporarily banned the plant from accepting additional material.
The plant’s operation appears closed. Two published telephone numbers for the plant rang repeatedly busy this week. The gate was padlocked, but security lights were lit Tuesday night. A dumped sofa and a TV were near the plant’s gate Wednesday.
Philip Grondin Jr. said Tuesday his company has a quote from Pine Tree Waste, a Casella Waste Systems company, that would deposit the debris in the Juniper Ridge landfill in Old Town.
According to its website, Juniper Ridge Landfill is operated by New England Waste Services of Maine, another Casella Waste Systems company.
Grondin, who was to meet with his company’s lawyer Tuesday, expected to close with another mortgage holder, Bank of America, by the end of December.
“There’s a lot of moving parts on this deal,” Grondin said this week.
Gorham’s website lists the property owner at 18 Gorham Industrial Parkway as CLRS Properties, LLC. The town’s assessed tax value of the 8.3-acre site, which includes buildings, is $668,500. The property is adjacent to other Grondin property and also near the Grondin company headquarters building on Bartlett Road.
Last week, the Town Council, in a 6-0 vote (John Pressey absent), supported efforts of Grondin to have the waste taken to the Old Town commercial landfill.
The announcement drew applause from several residents. “Kenny Grondin and Phil Grondin are rock stars,” Stoudt said.
Several neighbors visited Grondin’s office Friday with pumpkin bread, apple pie, cookies and coffee. “We pulled Phil out of a big conference meeting,” Stoudt said.
Grondin said Tuesday his company has talked with the Department of Environmental Protection and the court is waiting for Grondin to go through the environmental department’s vetting the site and signing off on the proposal.
Grondin was pleased with results of soil and water tests at the Plan-It Recycling site.
“Those tests came out very good,” Grondin said.
If the deal that would haul the debris out of Gorham materializes, Pine Tree Waste employees could do the trucking. At the Town Council meeting in October, removal of debris was estimated to require 1,500 truckloads.
Eric Hamlin, environmental specialist in the Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, said in an email Tuesday, “If they have a licensed transporter move the waste and it goes to Juniper Ridge or another licensed landfill such as Turnkey in Rochester, N.H., or Crossroads in Norridgewock, no license or special permission would be required from the department.
“If Grondin wishes to transport waste themselves, they would need to obtain a non-hazardous waste transporter license, but that is inexpensive and could be handled very quickly, probably a one- to two-day turnaround,” Hamlin said.
The Gorham Town Council in a special meeting in October had OK’d disposal of the material in the Gorham landfill, but the proposal still would have required Gorham Planning Board and Department of Environmental Protection approval. That proposal drew an outcry from neighbors on Huston Road, Wards Hill Road and Mighty Street.
Opposition of utilizing the Gorham landfill centered on health concerns, property devaluation and contamination of an aquifer and wells.
The town would not have charged Grondin a disposal fee, but the company would have been responsible for opening and closing costs at the landfill in addition to other associated expenses. The town of Gorham had initially estimated disposal fees in out-of-town landfills to run about $750,000.
Referring to the Old Town alternative, Grondin said it would likely cost the company more money than depositing it at Gorham’s landfill. But, an Old Town landfill deal would eliminate liability concerns for Grondin.
Gorham wants the Plan-It Recycling site to have a restriction placed on its real estate title, subject to town attorney approval, that prohibits the property from ever being used to process, store or transfer commercial or residential waste.
Grondin seemed optimistic Tuesday about the proposed alternative disposal opportunity.
“We’re almost there, looking forward to getting final approval and getting the work done,” Grondin said.
Gorham could be saying good-bye to piles of recyclable debris,
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