The Juniper Ridge Landfill cannot proceed with its planned expansion and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection must redo its study to allow the expansion, a judge ruled Wednesday.
The Maine DEP did not complete “critical” fact finding before it allowed the Old Town landfill to expand, Penobscot County Superior Court Justice Bruce Mallonee ruled in a 17-page opinion.
Penobscot Nation and the Conservation Law Foundation sued the Maine DEP in November 2024 over the proposed expansion. The Maine DEP decided Oct. 2, 2024, there is a public benefit to the expansion and expanding the landfill is not inconsistent with environmental justice.
The expansion would add the equivalent of nearly nine Empire State Buildings to the landfill, advocates said.
The decision comes as Penobscot County is in the midst of a trash crisis. Juniper Ridge accepts trash from dozens of Maine municipalities, as well as 25,000 tons of waste from out-of-state. The landfill has a capacity of 10 million cubic yards and will run out of room in 2028 if it continues accepting trash at the current rate, Casella Waste System said previously.
The Maine DEP’s draft approval allowed the state-owned Juniper Ridge Landfill an 11.9-million-cubic-yard expansion.
The Maine DEP must reevaluate the proposed expansion and submit a revised public benefit determination within 75 days, the order said.
The department must consider the environmental burden the landfill places on the Penobscot Nation and any impact between the tribe and its “intimate relationship with the Penobscot River,” the opinion said.
While there is an “urgent reality” needed to fix Maine’s trash crisis, Mallonee said he cannot read the laws the same as the DEP.
“For years, the Penobscot Nation has warned that this landfill endangers their health, river, and sovereignty,” said Alexandra St. Pierre, Vice President for Environmental Justice at the Conservation Law Foundation. “This decision sends a powerful message: their lived experience matters, and environmental justice cannot be ignored.”
