It was not business as usual for local contractors this week. Trucks filled with brush or construction debris were turned away at the transfer station on Country Club Road in Boothbay if their load contained wood material.

The Boothbay Region Refuse Disposal District (BRRDD) Board of Directors announced on Tuesday, June 15 that the waste management facility, commonly known as the dump, is not accepting any type of waste wood for now.

This means that builders, landscapers, trash haulers and other contractors cannot dispose of brush, logs or construction and demolition lumber at the regional facility until further notice.

Emergency Meeting

This measure was the result of an emergency meeting held Monday night by the District's directors after the state's industrial safety inspector effectively shut down operation of the dump's tub grinder which grinds up waste wood.

On Monday occupational safety engineer Maurice Nadeau of the Bureau of Labor Standards had cited the District with operating under hazardous conditions he described as ``being struck by projectiles from the tub grinder.''

Aware of the hazards of the tub grinder occasionally spitting out objects and hurling them up to 700 feet away, the directors had previously taken the step of closing the dump on Wednesdays so that grinding could be done that day. In effect for one week, the closure, now canceled, drew heavy criticism from area residents.

The notice given the District requires all personnel to be kept out of the ``caution area'' during any grinding operation, including not just workers at the dump but also at the adjacent Boothbay public works garage and the school bus depot/fuel depot.

``This means that no one may go outdoors at these facilities while the tub grinder is operated, which is not practically possible,'' said general manager Alison McCrady in a statement Tuesday.

Because the facility cannot operate the tub grinder to grind up wood and because adding any more scrap wood to the existing piles will create a fire hazard, the BRRDD cannot accept any more wood for disposal until solutions, both short and long-term, are worked out.

High Costs

``As it is, the District will have to pay for the disposal of the wood in these piles,'' says McCrady, who estimates it could cost as much as $10,000 to truck it up to Norridgewock -- money that is not in the District's budget.

Normally the District earns over $300,000 annually by chipping up its waste wood (over 4,000 tons per year) and selling it to biomass boilers and paper mills.

In addition to the unexpected disposal costs, the District could be fined $1,000 for hazard violations, according to board chairman Sam Lichtman.

The new tub grinder, the largest one the BRRDD facility has had, was purchased because of the increased amounts of waste wood being brought in which cannot be allowed to mount up because of the potential fire hazard.

``We weren't warned,'' says Lichtman, of how the new machine throws things out with such force that they become dangerous projectiles. The Wednesday closure, he felt, would have worked well to prevent possible injury although it caused an outcry from users.

``Apparently someone complained to the Labor Department,'' he said, ``...and they came down and closed us down.

``We can't accept debris now unless we haul it out, and that's a tremendous expense,'' Lichtman added.

Besides the short-term solution of disposing of the existing pile of waste wood, which could either be trucked out or ground up at a neighboring facility, the District's directors and McCrady are looking into long-term solutions for handling the wood.

The tub grinder needs to be operated on a large piece of property removed from the transfer station/recycling center, according to Lichtman, and probably needs some five acres. Purchasing property is another expense the District hadn't included in its budget.

``Until we find some ground we can't use the tub grinder,'' he said. ``We'll have to charge users to bring in debris and have it hauled off.''

Roiling Reactions

On Tuesday morning Lincoln County Sheriff's deputies were at the facility's gates to help turn away contractors with truckloads of wood products.

Contractor Daniel Oliver was so angry about the refusal of material that he made copies of the Labor Department's citation to pass out to other local contractors along with phone numbers of District directors and the state safety inspector.

``Now we have to pay our men double to haul it all back to where it came from,'' Oliver said Tuesday after his unsuccessful trip to the dump.

Rubbish contractor Dan Giles of Boothbay says the only solution for him will be to haul truck loads of wood products to Grimmel's Industries in Pejepscot, the closest facility which will accept the material since the one in Bath told him it was full.

The tipping fees of $65-70 per ton plus the costs of round-trip truck mileage and man-hours, which can add up in the summer traffic, will have to be passed on to his customers. Either that, or his many roll-off containers, which are also rented and used by local building contractors, will stay full of debris, unable to be emptied, hindering progress on a construction job as well as movement from one job to another.

Livelihoods may be affected if building projects stall due to demolition constraints, and landscapers could also feel the impact if they can't get rid of cleared brush.

Burning the brush and wood debris may be an option, but Boothbay Fire Chief Tom Nickerson reminds residents and contractors that they must obtain written permits from their local fire departments. With the situation at the transfer station he is on alert that things could get out of hand if too many people want to burn on the same day, posing a risk for firefighting coverage.

``If it gets out of hand, we'll have to limit the number of permits we give out,'' Nickerson said.

``We are working on the problem,'' said McCrady who was inundated with phone calls Tuesday as she started to look into possible solutions to the problem.

``We should have a short-term solution within the week, and we will have something to propose for the long term at the public hearing,'' she said, adding that the District apologizes for the inconvenience to the communities.

Public Hearing July 7

The public hearing is set for Wednesday, July 7 at 7 p.m. at the Boothbay Harbor Town Office, when discussion will focus on tub grinder operations, the disposal of waste wood and the possibility of charging a fee for this disposal.

The hearing is open to residents of all four towns served by the District -- Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, Southport and Edgecomb.

The facility is open on Wednesdays now, and continues to accept demolition material other than wood, such as metals, roofing shingles and sheetrock, as well as recyclable products.

For further information call the transfer station office, 633-5006.