Juniper Ridge expansion opponents argue state again failed to consider environmental justice

The Tribe and Boston-based environmental group argued in the hearing that even in its second public benefit determination, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection failed to truly meet the required environmental justice criteria. 

The department prioritized the expansion over consideration of the disparate impact on the Penobscot Nation, whose Indian Island reservation sits just downstream from the site, St. Pierre said, and the environmental justice criteria means nothing if this expansion is approved.

But Jack Dafoe, attorney for DEP, said the state has closely scrutinized the project. 

“This expansion is not something that is undertaken lightly,” Dafoe said. 

More than half of Maine’s landfill waste ends up at Juniper Ridge, which straddles Old Town and Alton. It is owned by the state through the Bureau of General Services, which has an operating contract with NEWSME Landfill Operations, a subsidiary of waste management company Casella.

The bureau has proposed expanding the landfill by 61 acres, which at the current fill rate of about 1 million cubic yards of waste per year, would allow for roughly 11 more years of use. 

The landfill is expected to reach capacity in 2028, and in order for Casella to apply for a license to expand, the DEP must determine the expansion would benefit the public. The department issued that determination in favor of the project, for the first time, in October 2024. 

After Thursday’s hearing, opponents of the expansion gathered outside the courthouse for a press conference. Maulian Bryant, executive director of the Wabanaki Alliance and a Penobscot Nation citizen, described the hearing as “intentional incompetence” from Maine DEP. 

“I heard them making environmental justice into some sort of mystical Rubik’s Cube,” she said. “It’s not. It’s believing that all people, no matter where you live, no matter who you are, no matter what your background, should not be harmed and should have access to clean air and clean water and clean ways of living.” 

John Banks, the former natural resources director for the Penobscot Nation and a Penobscot Nation citizen, said that there is no question in his mind that Juniper Ridge creates an undue burden on the surrounding community. And that has serious impacts on the lives of Penobscot Nation citizens. 

“As a retired person, I spend a lot of my time now trying my best to continue to practice the cultural traditions of our Tribe and our sustenance lifestyle, and it’s getting to the point where it could be unhealthy and unsafe for me to simply continue to practice the cultural traditions that my Tribe has practiced literally for thousand and thousands of years,” he said. 

Locals have argued that there has been insufficient treatment of landfill leachate — water that collects chemicals after passing through the waste — which runs into the Penobscot River. They are specifically concerned about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, otherwise known as PFAS or forever chemicals, which are linked to a number of negative health effects like some cancers, high cholesterol, reproductive and fetal development issues, and more.

The legal arguments

The Penobscot Nation and Conservation Law Foundation challenged the public benefit determination in court last year, and in January Penobscot County Superior Court Justice Bruce Mallonee ruled against the DEP. He said the department had not done adequate fact finding to determine that expanding Juniper Ridge, located near Old Town, would benefit the public, and did not consider the environmental impacts that the landfill has on the nearby Penobscot Nation.

After doing additional analysis, the DEP issued the second determination in March, and again said the expansion would benefit the public. 

The arguments Thursday focused on some of the specific details raised in the DEP’s latest determination, including a requirement for Juniper Ridge to create a PFAS treatment system for the landfill leachate that is discharged into the Penobscot River. 

PFAS treatment is sensible mitigation for any landfill, St. Pierre said, but it does not address the existing harm to the Penobscot Nation. And no treatment system can eliminate all PFAS, St. Pierre said, and there is no evidence that a treatment system could handle the “massive volume” of leachate from the landfill. 

But Dafoe countered that by installing the treatment system, the expanded landfill would have less of an impact on the Penobscot River than it does right now, and called it an “unprecedented” requirement. 

Brian Rayback, attorney for NEWSME, echoed the point.

“We do know that PFAS discharges to the river will be less with the expansion than without,” because of the required PFAS treatment system, Rayback said. 

Dafoe added that the discharge from the landfill is treated at the Nine Dragons Paper Mill, 1.6 miles downstream from the Penobscot Nation sustenance fishing area. There is “no evidence in the record that there is a direct effect from the discharge on the upstream” portions of the river. 

St. Pierre disagreed, and said the discharge downstream will still affect the fish in the river, and “to state the obvious, fish move.”

St. Pierre also criticized the DEP’s analysis of the impacts on the fish that many Penobscot Nation citizens rely on. The Tribe has a historic and cultural practice of sustenance fishing, St. Pierre said, and while the DEP considered a test for one type of PFAS in Penobscot River fish, it should have done more testing for other types. 

By considering only the level of PFOS in fish in the Penobscot River and using that as a proxy for other PFAS is “scientifically unreasonable,” St. Pierre said. 

But Rayback argued that the department worked to utilize the best information available, and just because we “don’t have perfect information doesn’t mean the analysis is unlawful.”

And when considering the impact of PFOS in those fish on human health, St. Pierre said, the DEP failed to consider the higher rate of fish consumption by the Tribe. 

Rayback countered that the department analysis was lawful, and “DEP just didn’t give it the weight that petitioners would like.” 

Justice Mallonee pointed out that the landfill is already operating, and as such, is already producing a level of environmental damage. He said the expansion includes some requirements that would alleviate some of the existing damage, and asked if there is a way to know how much more discharge and pollution would occur with the expansion. 

St. Pierre said she did not have information to be able to predict exactly, but with such a large expansion the environmental burdens would increase with the landfill’s size. 

But Dafoe countered that with an expansion, other areas of the landfill are usually closed off, and there is “no indication there will be a large increase in leachate.”  

A focus on environmental justice

Mallonee appeared to be considering exactly what criteria the law requires the DEP to consider under the environmental justice provision, and asked all three attorneys how they would define environmental justice, and what that looks like in these circumstances. 

St. Pierre said environmental justice is meant to protect people from unequal burden from waste management, and in this case, it means denying the expansion application — because the facts of the case and the size of the expansion do not conform with environmental justice standards. 

Dafoe argued that the key factor is whether a project would put an “undue burden” on a community, and in this case, the department concluded there would be a “minimal burden” on the Penobscot Nation. 

“We don’t think it means righting all wrongs, because it can’t, we’re working within the statutory systems,” Dafoe said. 

Mallonee added that the size of the expansion is “just staggering,” and said it’s hard to avoid the feeling that we are looking at a forest through a “jewelers loupe” — a small magnifying glass — and not seeing the entire operation.

A spokesperson for DEP declined to comment further, stating the department does not comment on pending litigation. A spokesperson for Casella declined to comment.

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