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Maulian Bryant is a Penobscot Nation Tribal citizen and executive director of the Wabanaki Alliance.
The Juniper Ridge Landfill sits just upriver from the Penobscot Nation. For most people, that’s a location. For us, it’s home. It’s history. It’s identity. It’s our future.
We are a riverine people. The Penobscot River has sustained our Nation for more than 10,000 years — feeding our families, shaping our culture, giving us our name. The river is our relative. And she is suffering.
Every rainfall at the landfill sends a cascade of chemicals and waste seeping down through the landfill, becoming leachate — a poisonous brew that includes toxic PFAS, that is then sent to be treated at the now-closed Nine Dragons Paper Mill just downriver from our community in Old Town. 16 million gallons of this leachate are pumped into the Penobscot River every year. Our people are caught between a landfill and a discharge pipe — literally and unjustly.
We are seeing the impacts of this toxic leachate on the fish we consume. Fish in the Penobscot River are testing high for PFAS, which can have detrimental impacts on the health of our community. Since time immemorial we have relied on the Penobscot River for sustenance, and can no longer.
This is environmental injustice in real time. And it’s being fueled by waste that shouldn’t be here in the first place. Maine bought the landfill in 2003 with the explicit intent of being able to prevent it from being filled with out-of-state waste without being in violation of the federal commerce clause.
In 2022, Maine took a major step forward with the passage of LD 1639, finally closing the loophole that had allowed over 200,000 tons of out-of-state waste to flood into the Juniper Ridge Landfill each year. Construction and demolition waste was being brought into the state and making a pit stop at a waste processing facility in Lewiston where it was then deemed “waste generated within the state” and was legally allowed to go into Juniper Ridge. Closing that loophole was a hard fought win for environmental health and for the stewardship over our homelands.
But the celebration was short-lived.
Just one year later, the loophole was cracked open again under pressure from Casella Waste Systems, the for-profit operator of Juniper Ridge. Casella said it faced a sludge disposal crisis and essentially used municipalities as leverage to convince lawmakers to allow 25,000 tons of out-of-state waste back in for two years. Now, LD 297 threatens to blow that loophole wide open, expanding it to up to 100,000 tons a year. Maine faces a landfill capacity crisis, but could now continue to fill up its foremost landfill with the rest of New England’s waste.
There is no technical reason that waste from out-of-state is needed to stabilize the sludge landfilled at Juniper Ridge; landfills in other states use other types of waste for this purpose. What’s driving this, it seems, it is profit, pressure, and politics — not public health or environmental science.
Casella has repeatedly pushed lawmakers to bend. And each time the Legislature caves it becomes harder to ever close this loophole again. LD 297 is not just a policy tweak. We see it as a step backward that will keep poisoning our river.
This is more than a waste management issue. It is a public health issue, an environmental justice issue, and yes, a racial justice issue. Time and again, toxic sites are placed near communities like ours — Indigenous, marginalized — and justified as necessary sacrifices for the convenience of others.
But we are not a sacrifice zone.
We are the original people of this land, and we hold treaty rights to fish in the Penobscot River. We cannot sustainably fish when the river is poisoned. We cannot safely breathe when the air is filled with toxic emissions. And we cannot accept more out-of-state waste when we’re already paying the price for decades of environmental harm.
Casella must be held accountable. And we believe Maine must draw a hard line: no more out-of-state waste can go in Juniper Ridge Landfill, for good.
I am writing for the river because she does not have a seat at the table. But she speaks clearly if you choose to listen.
