Casella Waste Systems intends to shutter its Hawk Ridge composing facility next year after Maine regulators raised red flags about significant forever chemical pollution in the nearby environment.
For decades, the Unity Township facility in Kennebec County took residual materials from wastewater treatment plants, also known as sludge, and processed it into fertilizer.
Maine banned spreading such materials in 2022 after discovering multiple farms had been contaminated with toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances - known as PFAS - from sludge fertilizer. PFAS has been linked to health problems in people including low birth weight and certain cancers.
But other states haven't enacted the same fertilizer bans and Casella continued to accept and process out-of-state sludge at Hawk Ridge.
But now the level of contamination at the site is starting to come into focus, said Adam Nordell, a campaign manager at environmental nonprofit Defend our Health.
"Casella has a mess that they need to clean up. They need to address the groundwater contamination, the soil is severely contaminated. They can't walk away from that," Nordell said.
The company took in more than 54,000 cubic yards of out-of-state sludge last year, the vast majority of all the material accepted, according to its annual state report.
Regulators from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection ordered Casella to take corrective action at Hawk Ridge to minimize PFAS-contaminated runoff and groundwater pollution at the site.
The department said that testing revealed
high levels of chemical pollution in streams and wetlands more than two miles away from Hawk Ridge.
Based on water and fish tissue sampling, "it is evident that past and current HRCF operations are impacting surface water downgradient of the property boundary with impacts continuing miles downstream," the department said.
In response, Casella told the state it intended to close the facility. It intended to stop accepting waste in September and fully shutter the property in 2026, the company said.
Although "the facility has played a critical role for decades in the recycling of biosolids into usable products, the current regulatory environment no longer supports these efforts and Casella has deemed that the continued operation of the Hawk Ridge facility is not sustainable," vice president Samuel Nicolai told the state in a late August letter.
Casella did not respond to an interview request.
Maine DEP spokesperson David Madore said the agency is reviewing Casella's closure plan and expects the company to submit an environmental clean up plan by the end of 2025.
