It’s hard to beat the view at the North Haven Transfer Station: The dump overlooks a tree-covered hill on the North Shore that, in autumn, offers some of the island’s best leaf-peeping.
During the winter, hours are usually limited to Wednesdays and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with Monday hours added during the busy summer season. But even when summer people are around, a trip to the dump is usually an unremarkable or even enjoyable part of the weekly routine, an opportunity for small talk about island goings-on with friends and neighbors also taking care of business.
That has been far from the case in recent weeks, however, as this essential piece of North Haven infrastructure has been upended following the departure of two key transfer station employees — the manager and one of the station’s attendants. Being shorthanded has forced the town to get creative to maintain even a partial schedule while working to rehire for those positions, with elected officials and other staff from across the municipal government covering shifts at the transfer station.
But despite these efforts, islanders have found that their weekly routine is now anything but.
“Despite advertising widely through multiple forums, within our local community, and on neighboring islands, we have not yet received interest from any applicants for either role,” said Rebekah Carmichael-Austin, North Haven’s town administrator. “As a result, the town has been working to temporarily cover operations while continuing recruitment efforts.”
Now, when community members follow the green signs urging them to “Be green and save money” by using the town’s single-stream recycling container, they’re just as likely to be met by a member of the Select Board as they are by an attendant.
“When we decided to pitch in at the transfer station it was mainly just to focus on maintaining two days a week and address the urgency we were feeling as a board to keep things going quasi-normally,” said Kenneth Corson, who was elected to the Select Board last year.
Some shifts are also covered by the town’s property manager, Jamien Shields. But the only times that the transfer station has been opened are during the week; no one has been able to cover a Saturday shift, which is making life difficult for residents who have less flexibility during the workweek.
On March 11, town residents brought their trash to the transfer station. Many, including teachers at North Haven Community School, the town’s largest employer, rushed to make the trip up the North Shore Road on their lunch break. Upon arrival, however, transfer station attendant Bud Waterman emerged from his office to break the news that the container was full, and no trash could be dropped off that day — or until the following Wednesday.
Former transfer station manager Rhodec Erickson, who left the position earlier that week, attributed the issue to a number of factors.
“Whoever was operating the transfer station on Monday and Wednesday morning, it is difficult to know what to look for when it’s full. There’s no light or sensor; it just compacts until it stops,” he said. “The only way to know if it’s full is to get on top of it and jump on it and see if it bounces and listen to the roof of the container — it’ll make the noise once and spring up and that’s how you know it’s full.”
Being on an island only compounds the problem: To move household trash off North Haven and to a landfill, an empty container has to be brought over on the ferry to trade for the full one, and the switch-out can take place only between the first boat’s arrival on North Haven at 10:30 a.m. and the middle boat’s departure at 12:30 p.m. Available reservations for extended-length trucks are few and far between, and are taken by Spears and Viking Lumber delivery trucks two days each week.
Although Carmichael-Austin said North Haven residents have been patient and understanding during the transfer station’s period of transition, for many at the school, the full container, compounded by the loss of a weekend transfer station day, was the tipping point from empathy to frustration.
“The situation is garbage,” said first- and second-grade teacher Christine Cooper.
“I don’t want to leave trash in my car. If they’re picking two days, why not do it on Saturdays?” asked Jessie Hallowell, who teaches third through sixth grade English language arts and other subjects.
Guidance counselor Kelsey Jones, who has a 6-year-old and a 2-year-old, said she had accumulated so much trash, primarily from diapers, that she was storing it in the bins reserved for her neighbors in the Calderwood Hall apartments. And principal Shaun Johnson said his recycling was out of control.
“I’m putting it anywhere it can fit,” he said. “Crawl spaces.”
The disruption caused by the loss of an essential infrastructure position is keenly felt in rural, isolated communities.
“When something as regular and as reliable as the transfer station falls through, it’s a wakeup call and a reminder of how fragile the economy really can be,” said David McDougal, owner of the North Haven Inn and Market. McDougal said that while the 16 to 20 bags of trash generated by the store in the off-season felt manageable under the revised schedule, three weekly trash runs in the summer are essential to stay on top of the 50 to 60 bags generated each week in the busy season.
But hiring is slow work in Maine, and even more so in a place like North Haven.
“Recruiting staff for essential municipal positions can be challenging in any small community, particularly in rural areas or on islands where the local workforce is limited. This is not unique to North Haven,” Carmichael-Austin said. “During my previous position in Rangeley, we also experienced challenges attracting qualified applicants for certain municipal positions. Smaller towns often compete with larger municipalities and the private sector for a limited pool of workers, which can make recruitment difficult.”
The unexpected delays kept mounting. A spate of bad weather led to canceled ferries during the scheduled trash container switch-out, which would have allowed North Haven residents to drop trash off on March 18. Instead, the switch-out happened on March 19, and the transfer station opened from noon until 4 p.m. on March 20.
Select Board Co-Chair Jacqueline Curtis worked recycling, while attendant Bud Waterman supervised trash drop-off. He counted 35 households dropping off 60 bags of trash in the first two hours, numbers that might typically be seen over an entire 8-hour day under ordinary circumstances.
Still, Waterman noted, everyone seemed pretty happy to be there.
This story appears through a media partnership with Midcoast Villager.
