ORRINGTON, Maine — Officials with Eagle Point Energy Center say they're close to finishing the trash removal process but still have a lot of work to get the facility up and running again.
"At this point, about 7,000 tons has been removed," EPEC spokesperson Dan Cashman said while standing outside of the waste facility.
According to Cashman, trucks carrying burnt trash have been coming and going from EPEC since the fire was fully extinguished on Oct. 11.
"Because of the fire, there was a lot of waterlogging that happened within the trash, so it just became heavier,"
The added weight means more trips to bring the trash to Juniper Ridge Landfill in Old Town which is owned by Casella Waste Systems.
Jeff Weld, Casella’s vice president of communications, said the disposal of the burnt and waterlogged waste shares some similarities with municipal waste removal, but with added challenges. “You do have to sort of watch out for things,” Weld said. "The waste had been sitting around for a longer period of time so the potential for vectors and animals in things like that that could've gotten in there."
Weld says Casella is also looking at the increased amount of wastewater produced by the trash because of its higher water content.
"It's no longer treated like storm water runoff, for an example. It's treated much differently; we take it off site and take it to a wastewater treatment facility where it's then treated," Weld explained.
While the removal process is a little more complicated, Weld says assisting EPEC in reopening the energy-to-waste facility could be a big help to managing Maine's trash.
"It's really all about having that reliable disposal capacity whether it's incineration at a place like EPEC or a landfill," Weld said.
And with Casella's support, Cashman says that more than 75 percent of waste has been cleared which will allow crews to move forward with repairs needed to reopen the facility.
"The building where the fire occurred was slated to be demolished anyway so that is in process as well," Cashman said.
Officials with EPEC say they're hoping to have the energy-to-waste facility up and running sometime in 2025, with the remaining trash slated to be removed in the next few weeks.