Maine gave the company behind the Orrington trash incinerator a $250,000 grant this week, a day after a town official said he hopes the facility will be permitted to start accepting trash again later this month.
The Eagle Point Energy Center, or EPEC, trash incinerator received the grant from the state through the Pandemic Recovery for an Innovative Maine Economy Fund on Wednesday. It was one of 48 companies to receive $7 million total in state funds.
The plant, formerly known as Penobscot Energy Recovery Co., will use the grant for equipment that turns waste into fuel while removing some recyclable materials, EPEC spokesperson Dan Cashman said Friday.
The additional funding for Eagle Point comes a month after a 10-day fire in October blanketed the Orrington region in smoke, forced officials to advise local residents to keep their windows closed and impaired air quality over a wide swath of Maine.
In the weeks after the fire was extinguished, roughly 7,000 tons of trash were taken to Juniper Ridge Landfill. Orrington paid roughly $450,000 in tipping fees to Juniper Ridge, although the state of Maine is reimbursing those costs, Town Manager Chris Backman said at a town meeting Tuesday.
Tipping fees are based on the weight of the waste and paid to the facility accepting the trash.
Around 4,000 tons of trash are now in the facility’s reclaim area, where they are stacked in piles no higher than 25 feet with room between them, Backman said.
A permit allowing Eagle Point to start accepting solid waste will hopefully be granted by Thanksgiving, Backman said.
Eagle Point Energy Center bought the facility in February, and it has not accepted trash in more than a year.
The facility needed a new roof prior to the fire, but that need escalated after it was burned in spots. A new roof should be installed in early December, Backman said.
About 6 to 8 inches of concrete will also be poured on the tipping floor next month to make up for the wear from decades of use, he said.
The facility received $650,000 from the Penobscot County Commissioners in American Rescue Plan Act funding in March. The money was used to buy a new baler, which was delivered the day before the fire started.
It was not damaged in the fire, and has not been put to use yet, but will be used in the coming months, Backman said.
Eagle Point is now facing a lawsuit from PERC, which alleges, in part, that Eagle Point told towns it had the waste collection contracts to try to “induce them, through deception” to pay fees to Eagle Point, when in fact those still belong to PERC.
The lawsuit also says the new owner fully knew the fire risks and should not be blaming the 10-day fire on PERC.
