As Casella looks to build a new facility in Westbrook and repair relations with Biddeford and Saco, it’s chief development officer says he wants to help pioneer a new way to handle trash through a partnership with those communities, and others.

Casella Waste Systems’ chief development officer has a vision of a world where there’s no such thing as trash.

In the not-so-distant future, all garbage will be recycled or turned into energy, according to Jim Bohlig.

“We want to get out of landfills and get into resource recovery,” he said this week.

A state-of-the-art trash-processing facility Casella is proposing to build on County Road in Westbrook would mark a step in what Bohlig calls “the journey to zero waste.”

But the utopian vision he has painted of the future of waste management is in stark contrast with the image of Casella’s current operations – the controversial Biddeford incinerator, Maine Energy Recovery Co.

Bohlig speaks with passion and authority about the world’s environmental challenges and the role Casella will play in alleviating them. With an engineering degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and a business degree from Columbia University, Bohlig, 63, is by all accounts an intelligent, articulate, even charming man.

But the challenge he faces is tough one. He has to convince the city of Westbrook it wants to take on the 280,000 tons of trash per year that currently go to MERC.

THE PROPOSAL

The construction of a separate facility to process the incinerator’s trash was initially pitched as a boon to Biddeford and Saco – one of several initiatives brought forward to mitigate the negative effects the plant has had on the two cities since it was built near their border in the 1980s.

Those initiatives were made public in October by a task force that was originally formed to find a way for the public to purchase and shut down the incinerator. But no one could afford the plant’s $50 million price tag, and so the task force last fall took a new approach.

Casella’s plans to build that facility in Westbrook surfaced last month. Moving the trash-processing operations out of downtown Biddeford provided an incentive for that city to keep working with Casella. And, according Bohlig, the $15 million facility would be an asset for Westbrook, which would benefit from its tax revenue and the creation of some 30 jobs.

The facility would take in the trash that now goes to the incinerator, and, with cutting-edge technology, would sort it so that everything recyclable would be removed and the remaining waste would be condensed into pellets. The pellets would then be trucked back to the Biddeford incinerator and burned as fuel.

According to Bohlig, the sorting process would remove much of the material that makes the trash emit odor and dioxins into the air – two major sources of contention Biddeford and Saco have with the incinerator. Also, by condensing the trash at a facility in Westbrook, fewer trucks would come through Biddeford’s downtown.

Bohlig insists that the burdens being lifted from Biddeford won’t cause undue harm to Westbrook. The site on County Road where the facility is being proposed already has several permits for a construction and demolition processing facility that Casella had planned to start building there in October. A traffic permit for that plant allowed 253 trucks per day. With the change in use, Casella estimates that only 167 trucks would be coming through there daily.

Westbrook can also feel good about being a leader in “the clean tech revolution,” Bohlig said. Because of the technology that would be used in the new facility, he said, an additional 25,000 tons of recyclable material will be removed from the waste stream every year.

“On the social side, it’s going to help contribute to the state of Maine,” said Bohlig.

THE PERKS

In addition to the direct benefits of the facility, Westbrook residents and businesses could be the recipients of several energy- and cost-saving perks that will soon be offered to citizens of Biddeford and Saco.

The task force developed a package of programs that would help residents and businesses lower their utility bills by reducing electricity rates and providing incentives to weatherize their homes and offices and to use a new method of storing heat.

Casella is in the process of forming a nonprofit organization called the Maine Green Energy Alliance, which communities that host their trash facilities, like Biddeford, Saco and potentially Westbrook, would be invited to join.

One of the alliance’s first tasks will be to form a community supply group, which would become the power supplier for residents of cities participating in the alliance. The power will come from Casella’s incinerator and will be offered at a cost lower than the current standard.

The alliance’s other initiatives are dependent on the passing of a bill that’s currently in front of state legislators. The bill proposes to connect home and business owners with low-interest loans through a bond program called Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), to pay for energy-related improvements to their houses or offices.

The loans would be offered at low interest rates because participating communities would agree to cosign them.

The alliance would be responsible for helping communities enact the rules that would allow them to provide the low-interest loans and for educating people about investing in efficiency improvements.

One specific change the alliance will push people to make is the conversion to a new, cost-effective way of heating buildings, called electric thermal storage. The way it works is that people buy power at off-peak times, when the rate is lower, and then store it in ceramic heaters, which would disperse the energy when it’s needed. The technology reduces the cost to heat buildings and the dependency on oil.

Bohlig said an educational program, using the Internet and mailings, would be rolled out within the next few weeks, informing residents of Biddeford and Saco about how they could benefit from improving their homes’ efficiency.

Bohlig said the alliance’s goal is to weatherize 14,000 homes in the next decade. That includes buildings in Westbrook, should the city sign onto Casella’s project and join the alliance.

There are still several steps in the way of the alliance reaching its goal. The legislation has to be passed. The cities have to decide to join the alliance and enact ordinances. Then residents and business owners would have to decide for themselves that these would be investments they are interested in making.

Their incentive, Bohlig said, is simple. “Just like the same people that go to Wal-Mart – why do they go there? To live cheaply,” he said.

Officials from Biddeford and Saco say they’re excited by the possibilities the programs could afford, but they’ll have to see it to believe it.

THE PAST

The relationship Biddeford and Saco has had with Casella has historically been a contentious one – particularly between Bohlig and Biddeford Mayor Joanne Twomey, a longtime, outspoken adversary of the incinerator.

But as the work of the task force got under way, things started to change.

“We both had to face the reality of the world that we live in and that we had an obligation to build something for our citizens,” Bohlig said. “We found that we were in agreement in many areas.”

Twomey put it more bluntly.

“I’ve come to the realization he doesn’t have three heads,” she said Tuesday.

The programs Bohlig brought forth to reduce energy costs for area resident were “very seductive,” Twomey said, and put Biddeford, Saco and Casella back at the bargaining table.

However, she still hasn’t seen the hard evidence that the pellets will be less hazardous to residents. And the programs, which Casella promised to get started in January, have yet to begin.

“It does make me question aloud,” Twomey said.

Peter Morelli, Saco’s director of development, said the incinerator’s odor – and Casella’s unwillingness to acknowledge it – is the biggest issue for him.

Though Bohlig said that the Biddeford plant only smells a handful of days every year, Morelli said Saco residents can smell it almost every day in the summer.

And despite Bohlig’s pitch that the changes to the plant and the programs offered for residents will make strides toward a cleaner world, Twomey and Morelli say, above all, the Casella executive is a businessman trying to make money for his company

Bohlig doesn’t disagree. “I have an 8-year-old daughter and she’s going to grow up in a world where hydrocarbons are going to be constrained. And that’s going to change everyone’s business model.”

Still, Twomey and Morelli say they are first and foremost looking out for the well-being of Biddeford and Saco residents.

On Tuesday, they briefed officials in both cities on the work of the task force and the programs that are expected to be coming soon.

Westbrook Mayor Colleen Hilton said it’s too early to form a solid opinion of Casella or its proposal. She said she’s been gathering information about the company and recently met with Twomey to discuss the project and her working relationship with Casella.

However, Hilton said, a lot of questions still need to be answered. Perhaps the success of the residential and business programs in Biddeford and Saco will give some guidance to officials in Westbrook.

“There are just so many ifs,” Hilton said.

City Administrator Jerre Bryant said Casella still needs a permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection to process the waste. The next step would be approval from the Planning Board for a site plan amendment, if necessary. Bryant said the company also would need to renegotiate the host-community agreement with Westbrook, which currently provides automated curbside recycling and trash pickup.

Twomey said she’s not looking to dump Biddeford’s problem onto Westbrook, but wasn’t interested in having the new trash-processing facility in her city because the truck traffic would continue to wear away at Biddeford’s roads.

“I feel like we’ve paid more than our dues,” she said.

Twomey and Morelli visited a Casella plant in Charlestown, Mass., just outside downtown Boston, which is similar to the one proposed for Westbrook. They both said it looked like a clean, well-operated facility. Still, they’re excited to move the trash processing out of their towns.

“It’s all great spin, but at the end of the day the ash still goes into somebody’s landfill,” Twomey said.

Jim Bohlig, a Casella Waste Systems executive, believes Westbrook will benefit from his company’s proposed waste processing plant. He also envisions a new era in dealing with waste, with Biddeford’s Maine Energy Recovery Co. at the forefront. (Staff photo by Brandon McKenney)

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