WESTBROOK – The Maine Energy Recovery Co. plant in downtown Biddeford remains on track to cease all trash processing operations by the end of this month and start up its new Westbrook facility.

Casella Waste Systems sold its nearly 30-year-old waste-to-energy facility to the city of Biddeford on Nov. 30 for a price of $6.65 million. With a new transfer station set to open in Westbrook by Dec. 31, Casella no longer has any need to accept trash at Maine Energy, said Joe Fusco, spokesman for Casella Waste Systems.

“We are on track to close Maine Energy,” he said Monday. “While the opening of the Westbrook facility all depends on the weather, the contractor is confident it will be ready to open at the end of the month.”

The Westbrook site will accept municipal solid waste from Casella’s customers throughout southern Maine, along with construction and demolition debris and recyclables, Fusco said.

He said unlike Maine Energy, which is located on the banks of the Saco River, the Westbrook transfer station is “in a good site for a facility like this.”

Being built off County Road in a non-residential neighborhood, the Westbrook facility will also not be operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week like Maine Energy had, Fusco said.

He said there would initially be four employees on site, including a facility manager who has not yet been hired. Two of the other four have been hired, according to Fusco, and one of them is employed at Maine Energy. About 75 people had worked there.

Casella’s goal when agreeing to sell the long-controversial Maine Energy to Biddeford was to get a license from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to bury municipal solid waste at the Juniper Ridge landfill in Old Town.

Due to the high public interest in the proposal, Commissioner Patricia Aho has said she would schedule a public hearing on the issue before her department takes up the license request from Casella.

This fall, Aho indicated that the public hearing could be held sometime in January, but this week, Fusco said Casella has not yet heard from Department of Environmental Protection staff about when the hearing would be scheduled.