Fairfield to update 1980 waste ordinance to address PFAS and Sappi landfill license 26%
By Judith Meyer25%
8/3/2026, 1:25:43 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 22 faulty reasoning types, including Status Quo Bias, Self-Serving Bias, and Optimism Bias, with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 14.1% saturation with 107 hits. Analysis detected 942 faulty-reasoning hits from 761 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 31.8% and a BS Rank of 26% (20,663 of 27,733 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 74.50% of the article peer group.
Members of the Fairfield town council during a June 24 meeting.
(Screenshot/Crossroads-TV)
FAIRFIELD — Fairfield Town Council members pledged during a public hearing last week to update the town's sludge and solid waste disposal ordinance to address perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which the Maine Department of Environmental Protection classifies as toxic.
Enacted in 1980, the current ordinance bans the disposal of toxic materials at solid waste sites — a rule that directly conflicts with Sappi North America's active disposal operations at its landfill off Route 201.
Ross Nason, a senior environmental engineer for Sappi, attended the regular Town Council meeting to answer councilors' questions about the annual landfill license renewal, reminding them that the town and the DEP have licensed the facility since 1981.
Nason said Sappi plans to construct a 14th cell for holding waste at the landfill in 2029.
He highlighted the company's monitoring and collection systems, detailing the testing process for leachate — contaminated liquid produced when water mixes with decomposing solid waste — and monitoring wells at the Somerset Plant.
Nason said the landfill, which has a 17.6-year life expectancy, processes about 75,000 compressed cubic yards of waste annually.
Councilor Kevin Kitchin asked why the amount of demolition debris had increased over the past year.
Nason explained that Sappi recently expanded a building and installed a new paper machine at the Somerset Mill in Skowhegan, which generated additional waste.
Matthew Townsend, vice chair of the Town Council, asked Nason about PFAS levels and the testing of wastewater sludge, as well as whether Sappi has redundancy plans in case the Fairfield facility is breached.
Nason said the leachate is collected, tested and treated according to the company’s state license requirements and DEP standards, adding that the landfill features a multitiered liner system.
“There’s a primary liner and a secondary liner.
We monitor the space in between,” Nason said, noting that the site also features “monitoring wells in and around the landfill and significantly around the landfill” that are tested three times a year.
If any contamination occurred, Nason said, frequent testing would alert Sappi to it quickly.
Following Nason’s presentation, Kitchin said the town needs to update the language in its municipal solid waste ordinance regarding “specifically toxic materials and specifically PFAS, which the state identified as toxic materials” since the ordinance was enacted.
Kitchin said the town has continued to renew Sappi’s license “even though it’s against our ordinance to allow toxic materials in the landfill,” but he hopes Sappi and Fairfield officials can work on wording to bring the ordinance in line with current disposal practices.
This would include adding classifications for toxic materials and taking into account a 2024 Department of Environmental Protection report that lists all materials going into the landfill.
Kitchin voted against renewing the landfill license last year specifically because the toxic materials entering the facility violated the ordinance.
However, he said he would vote to renew the license this year because the town is being proactive in amending it.
“I think it may be just a matter of language to work through this,” he said.
“We’re definitely working to make this right.”
In February, Nason testified before the Joint Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources on behalf of Sappi North America in opposition to a bill that would have prohibited landfill expansion into wetlands.
With as much as 30 percent of land in Maine estimated to be wetlands, Nason said wetland impacts are inevitable in many land-development activities, arguing that existing regulations are thorough and offer adequate protection.
He said the bill would create a future solid waste crisis for the state by limiting landfill expansions, including an expansion that Sappi is now evaluating.
“Sappi views the Somerset Mill’s landfill as an integral part of our overall papermaking process by providing an environmentally safe, secure and cost-effective way of disposing of manufacturing residual waste, mostly sludge and boiler ash, from the papermaking process,” he testified.
He said operation of the landfill is vital to the mill, and any move to override existing wetland rules could create economic hardships for landfill operators, including Sappi.
The bill was later amended to apply only to state-owned solid waste landfills and directed the DEP to evaluate its rules regulating solid waste facilities and to identify opportunities to develop new or improve existing facilities.
The bill became law in April.
The DEP must seek input from the public and industry stakeholders and report back to the Legislature in January 2028.
Speakers
3speakers79%attributed speech163writer words
Selected voice
77%flagged-word coverageKevin Kitchin
188 attributed words31% of attributed speech55% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.