Rockland goes through the expensive work of closing its landfill

Rockland is the latest Maine community that’s going through the laborious and expensive work of closing a municipal landfill, with plans to complete the job this fall.

In addition to paying a few million dollars to cap the 4-acre dump — much of which will be reimbursed by the state — the city will also have to continuously collect and remove the liquid leachate and gas that are produced there. Because of state regulations and the structure of the landfill, officials also say that plot will likely have to remain vacant forever.

Rockland isn’t the only Maine community that’s had to close a landfill in recent years, or prepare for the possibility of doing so. Brunswick closed its municipal Graham Road landfill in 2021, a project that it estimated would cost $7.2 million. Other Maine municipalities that have active landfills include Augusta, Bath, Lewiston, Presque Isle and Fort Fairfield, according to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

Rockland has been using its landfill since the 1930s, dumping trash into it after it was retired as a limestone quarry. It’s one of the last quarry waste landfills in the state, along with another that is still in use by Mid-Coast Solid Waste Corp. in Rockport.

While Maine has banned the use of quarry landfills since the 1970s, because of the water that can fill them up over time, those two have been able to keep operating because they were grandfathered in with specific regulations. For the last few years, Rockland had tried to expedite the closure of its dump by accepting bulkier construction and demolition debris, but is now only filling its little remaining space with household trash

Rockland is working to complete all the steps that the state is requiring for the closure of the site on Limerock Street. City Manager Tom Luttrell said the work is about halfway done, with the quarry filled with sand, three new wells installed for the removal of contaminated liquid, and a new system almost complete to collect the polluting gas that can build up in landfills.

It’s expensive work, though. The project will likely cost between $3.5 million and $4 million, Luttrell said. The city has $2.5 million set aside, and voters in 2022 authorized the borrowing of another $2.4 million, though Luttrell said it won’t likely need that entire amount.

The state is set to eventually reimburse the city for three-quarters of its quarry closure expenses, as long as it goes through by the end of the calendar year, Luttrell said. He said the closure is set for October, but it could take years for Maine DEP to finish up its reimbursements.

“The selling point is, over time, it’ll all be 75 percent paid,” Luttrell said. “But, I don’t know when.”

Once the landfill is closed, the city will put clay, then loam and seeds on it, but the combination of water and trash won’t make for a good foundation for any kind of development, according to Luttrell. As the landfill will settle over time, Rockland won’t be able to follow the example of some municipalities that have put solar panels on old waste sites.

So, the plot of land near downtown will have to sit empty and be monitored for the foreseeable future. The city will mow it at least once a year, and refill it if it settles too much.

It’s unfortunate that it can’t be redeveloped, Luttrell said, because “That could be some prime real estate.”