DEP again gives initial approval for Juniper Ridge Landfill expansion

For the second time, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection has found that expanding the Juniper Ridge Landfill would benefit the public. 

The department issued a second positive public benefit determination Monday after a judge struck down the first determination earlier this year. 

“The court couldn’t have been clearer: look at the full picture – the pollution, the history, the cumulative harm,” Nora Bosworth, a staff attorney at Conservation Law Foundation, said in a press release after the decision. “Instead, DEP has once again treated environmental justice as a checkbox rather than a commitment to the people the law was meant to protect.” 

The Boston-based environmental law group along with the Penobscot Nation appealed the initial decision after the DEP determined in October 2024 that the expansion was in the public interest.

In January, Penobscot County Superior Court Justice Bruce Mallonee ruled against the DEP, saying the department had not done adequate fact finding to determine that expanding Juniper Ridge, located near Old Town, would benefit the public, and did not consider the environmental impacts that the landfill has on the nearby Penobscot Nation.

“For generations, the Penobscot Nation has worked to raise the many impacts our community faces at once — on our health, our lands, and the Penobscot River, the oldest citizen of our Nation,” said Penobscot Chief Kirk Francis in a statement Monday. 

“This decision does not reflect the lived reality of our people,” Francis continued. “Our voices and our knowledge of this place must be meaningfully considered when those in power make decisions that will impact our land and community.” 

The Penobscot Nation and Conservation Law Foundation are reviewing the new determination and assessing next steps. 

More than half of Maine’s landfill waste ends up at Juniper Ridge. It is owned by the state through the Bureau of General Services, which has an operating contract with NEWSME Landfill Operations, a subsidiary of waste management company Casella.

The landfill is expected to reach capacity in 2028, and in order for Casella to apply for a license to expand, the DEP must determine the expansion would benefit the public.