Bar Harbor Town Council Talks Trash
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BAR HARBOR—Some days in Bar Harbor, there will be three semitruck loads of trash hauled out of town. Each of them full.
“It blew my mind that we can ship out three of those trailers for MSW (municipal solid waste),” Public Works Director Bethany Leavitt said. “In one day. It’s phenomenal.”
That extraordinary amount of waste goes through the town’s transfer station, and Leavitt gave councilors a quick update about that facility during the Town Council’s Tuesday meeting.
The town, she said, has a consultant under contract to look at and analyze how the transfer station works for the town.
One goal of that contract is to make sure that all the waste that is coming in to the Bar Harbor facilities is actually generated in the town. The study does more than that, though. It will analyze how the facility works and try to find ways to make it work better for taxpayers.
“This is the first step to move us in the right direction,” Leavitt said Thursday. “We’ve got to study the problem and find the solutions.”
After that, she said, the community has to come together to figure out how to move forward with those solutions.
“It’s key to changing the outcome for us in Bar Harbor,” she said.
Her department, which is in charge of Bar Harbor’s infrastructure (streets, sewers, sidewalks, water mains, parks) also wants to look at what potential exists for selling recyclables such as cardboard, which is currently a cost to the town rather than a revenue.
It isn’t an easy solution.
Cardboard, she said, “takes up a lot of space and doesn’t compact well.”
Any potential changes or possibilities would also involve consideration of the potential change’s return on investment. It would also take into account the best use for the limited amount of space available at the transfer station site off Ledgelawn Extension for any expansion of operations.
Leavitt said Thursday that the report will look into targeting the space that the town does have with revenue streams for the town rather than an operation that could be located elsewhere.
“Possible options for composting food waste is in the works,” she told councilors, saying that she knows there have been concerns about how much food waste Bar Harbor takes in.
“It’s all about taking our existing operations and trying to implement reasonable changes” to take in new revenue and reduce the tax base costs, Leavitt said.
“I’m thrilled that you’re going ahead with this,” Council Vice Chair Gary Friedmann said.
The town’s current system is designed for single sort recycling. Friedmann asked if the consultant could suggest something other than the single-sort aspects of the current system. Friedmann said that for compostable material, which is so heavy, it makes sense to work with it locally rather than shipping it away and being charged for that.
The report is scheduled to be delivered in three months. Whether or not anything might be implemented before July 1 and the next fiscal year is unknown, though there could be some smaller or even short-term changes that could happen and impact the budget for next year.
“We want to reasonably modify some operations to bring in the revenue,” Leavitt told councilors. And while next year’s budget might be too soon to institute potential changes, Leavitt said Thursday that next year, “it should come together and have a pretty big impact.”
Solid waste, composting, is complicated, Town Manager James Smith said. “We’re going to explore every possible feasible option at our disposal.”
Smith said that there are seven more years on the town’s current waste contract and that the town has some contractable obligations with Municipal Review Committee (MRC) and then also has to work under the state’s direction and guidance.
The report should be able to provide an analysis of multiple options and considerations from its review of the facility operations.
Updated: Juniper Ridge Landfill Expansion Public Benefit Determination
Comment deadline: September 27, 2024
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is issuing a draft Public Benefit Determination for expansion of the Juniper Ridge Landfill. Public comments may be submitted until 5:00 pm on Friday, September 27, 2024.
Comments should be directed to Karen Knuuti at karen.knuuti@maine.gov or by US mail to Karen Knuuti, DEP, 106 Hogan Road STE 6, Bangor, ME 04401.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
https://barharbormaine.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/3486?html=true
https://barharbormaine.gov/126/Town-Council
https://www.townhallstreams.com/stream.php?location_id=37&id=56476
This story has been updated at 10 a.m., September 20 to include the Juniper Ridge public comment portion.
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In veggie food scraps for 2 people, without paper, we generate about 2, 5 gallon buckets a year. Even when our 3 kids were home that might have been 4-5 buckets. That all composts at home fairly easily to be turned into soil for the flower garden. Does it take some work, yes, but not much.