A proposal to create a housing subdivision on Mount Desert Island has renewed concerns over how an inactive landfill is affecting water quality in the neighborhood.
But the person who is proposing the subdivision — whose family also owns the abutting landfill site in Southwest Harbor — says he intends to connect the properties to the town’s drinking water and sewer systems to avoid the need for new wells that would be vulnerable to contamination.
For many residents, the proposal has renewed frustration over pollution that is leaking from the landfill on Long Pond Road, which was first put in use in the 1930s and last accepted waste sometime in the 1990s. A citizen petition submitted to town officials this week asks that Southwest Harbor’s land use ordinance be amended to require soil testing whenever a landowner within a half-mile of the site wants to build.
The debate pits competing interests against each other in a manner that has often repeated itself across the state. Housing in Maine is in short supply, with demand at historic highs for both workforce and high-end housing, but environmental concerns, such as remediation of polluted sites, flood-prone areas and protection of scenic areas, have led to pushback against development proposals in some communities.
Ben “Lee” Worcester, whose family still owns and operates Eastern Maine Recycling, a transfer station next to the family-owned landfill property, thinks the petition is misguided. It would put an undue burden on abutting property owners, and he is skeptical that soil testing would produce any meaningful data.
Pollution from the old landfill has been detected in groundwater to the south and east of the site, he acknowledged — and is being monitored by the state at various nearby testing sites — but hasn’t been identified in the topsoil on any neighboring property.
“It’s a big area,” Worcester said of the neighbors that would be required to do soil testing, if the proposed land use amendment is voted on and approved by residents on Nov. 4. “I have my doubts. I seriously question whether the surface of the ground is being impacted.”
The petition is not expected to directly affect his application to develop 12 house lots off Long Pond Road, which Worcester said is moving forward for Planning Board review. He said that he is well aware of the landfill’s impact on neighbors and will make sure the subdivision does not have similar groundwater problems.
The subdivision bylaws “will prohibit the ability to develop wells for any purpose,” Worcester said. “We’re not willing to risk it.”
Regardless of whether the subdivision is approved, lingering concerns about the landfill’s impacts prompted more than 120 voters to sign the petition to require soil testing around the landfill. The Select Board on Tuesday agreed to have the question put on the Nov. 4 election ballot, though two public hearings still have to be held on the proposal before the vote takes place.
And for some residents, soil testing is only one extra step that should be done. They have argued more remediation needs to happen at the landfill site, which is still considered “uncontrolled” by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. The aim is to reduce the amount of pollution — including metals, volatile organic compounds, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS — that is leaching into the groundwater and nearby Marshall Brook, which drains into Bass Harbor Marsh in Acadia National Park and then the ocean.
“Given this record, the responsible course is not development, but remediation and closure of the landfill,” Douglas Rissing, a resident and geologist, wrote to town officials. “With state and federal support, including potential Brownfield and Superfund resources, the landfill should be permanently capped, monitored, and in time possibly repurposed, through the use of land use controls.”
