NORTHEAST KINGDOM — Legislators politically at odds on many things have found common ground when it comes to landfill location.
They agree it shouldn’t be here.
Home to Vermont’s only landfill in Coventry, the Northeast Kingdom is well-represented when it comes to sponsorship of H.48, a bill proposed to find a new site for a landfill outside the NEK when the current facility’s capacity is reached. There are 14 state representatives named as sponsors, and nine of them are from the Kingdom with a near-equal mix of Democrats and Republicans. They are Katherine Sims of Craftsbury, Bobby Farlice-Rubio of Barnet, Scott Campbell of St. Johnsbury, David Templeman of Brownington (all Democrats) and Republicans Scott Beck of St. Johnsbury, Terri Williams of Granby, Brian Smith of Derby, Woody Page of Newport City, and Larry Labor of Morgan.
One of the provisions of the bill calls for a newly-created Landfill Siting Commission to identify a new site for a landfill “that is located in a region in proximity to the State’s major population centers.”
Beck said it doesn’t make sense for the corner region of the state where only a small fraction of the state’s population lives to serve as the location for everyone to truck their trash. He said the NEK has served the landfill purpose and now it’s time for another region to step up and host a landfill.
The location, the bill states, should be centrally located to reduce the costs to transport the garbage and be somewhere where it’s not a threat to natural resources or public health related to water resources.
H.48 notes that the projected lifespan of the current Casella-owned landfill in Coventry is 22 more years, and planning for a change needs to happen now.
One of the legislators not listed as a supporting sponsor happens to live in Coventry. Rep. Michael Marcotte, R-Orleans-Lamoille, said he chose to not sponsor the bill because it makes it sound like the state is in the landfill business, which it is not.
“The state regulates private entities to operate a landfill and ANR (Agency of Natural Resources) also regulates municipalities which have closed landfills,” he said in an email. “If it is decided the state wants to get into the landfill business, then it would be appropriate to institute a siting commission.”
The bill also proposes to ban disposal into a landfill “leachate, septage, or sludge that is generated by a facility that lacks a certification from the Secretary of Natural Resources or lacks approval from the Secretary of Natural Resources for disposal at a landfill.” This is a portion of the bill that Rep. Marcotte does support.
“I do agree on the need to have leachate, septage, and sludge banned from the landfill if the entity wanting to landfill it lacks certification from ANR,” he said.
Another aspect of H.48 would establish an account in the Waste Management Assistance Fund to be used by the Secretary of Natural Resources to close existing landfills. The money for the fund would come from increases on the tax on solid waste facilities and an increase on the tax on hazardous waste.
Rep. Marcotte is against this proposal because he said the existing facility is already required to handle the costs of closure and instituting a tax to cover those costs would ultimately fall to Vermonters.
“Currently ANR requires the landfill to have a bond or other security in place for landfill closure,” he said. “I don’t support creating a tax which would ultimately come from Vermont citizens to pay for something that is already taken care of.”
The bill was directed to the House Committee on Environment & Energy for consideration. Rep. Smith is on the committee.
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We can certainly relate here in the North Country of NH! With approximately just 2% of what is landfilled at the Casella NCES Landfill in Bethlehem (2021) originating from the North Country, meaning nearly 98% of waste being landfilled in Bethlehem is trucked in from south of the Notch. Casella's proposed 2nd commercial landfill, just 6 miles or so away, next to Forest Lake on RT116, is seeking a DOUBLING of the waste capacity NCES took in year 2021 (468k tons v 227k tons, yearly, meanings even MORE waste will be trucked in from out-of-state and from south of the Notch). With those dirty, red MBI tractor trailers averaging 4 miles or so a gallon, that is a lot of harmful diesel emissions entering the atmosphere. Something to keep in mind for the next, future landfill in NH, IF and WHEN needed. NH and the North Country do not need a new, commercial landfill, especially one so far from waste origination, and so poorly sited, surrounded by wetlands and both Forest Lake and the Ammonoosuc River.
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