Legislature was right to close out of state waste loophole
To the Editor;
The fact is Casella Waste had been profiting by filling Maine’s landfill with bulky waste imported from other states.
The Juniper Ridge landfill belongs to the state of Maine and should be used to landfill the waste of Maine’s residents, not waste from other states. Casella is always free to put out-of-state waste into any properly regulated landfill owned by Casella.
As to PFAS-contaminated sludge, that is a separate issue that should be addressed by every level of government suing the producers of PFAS for the expected trillions of dollars it will take to mitigate the environmental and health damage those chemicals have caused and are causing.
Towns will have to find alternative environmentally safe methods and places to process and store these poisonous compounds to protect us! Maybe free enterprise can come up with a method of dealing with these chemicals so they are no longer dangerous.
In the meantime, understand there has never been a landfill established that is leakproof, so putting PFAS sludge in them only delays the inevitable!
I, for one, applaud our Legislature for putting public health above corporate profit. That should be the role of governments.
John Albertini
Charleston