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November 27, 2012

Mayor: Toxins won't stop Biddeford incinerator buy

Biddeford's mayor says the discovery of toxins at the site of a local incinerator won't hold up the town's $6.65 million purchase and closure of the facility.

The Portland Press Herald reported that Mayor Alan Casavant said environmental tests at the site revealed dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls near Maine Energy Recovery Co.'s waste-to-energy incinerator.

Casavant says the town and MERC, owned by Casella Waste Systems, are coming to final terms over who will be responsible for cleanup of those toxins, some of which are due to previous industrial activity in the area, according to the environmental report done for the site.

Earlier this month, the town and company set a deadline of Nov. 30 to complete the sale, pushed back from a Nov. 15 deadline in response to complaints that not all of the test results for the site were then available.

The company also announced that, regardless of the sale, it has plans to close and dismantle the incinerator by the end of this year and begin processing trash at a Westbrook facility now under construction before it heads to the company's Juniper Ridge landfill in Old Town.

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