GARDINER — A South Portland-based trash hauling company plans to build a commercial transfer station in the Libby Hill Business Park.
The Gardiner Planning Board approved the plan Tuesday after a review lasting more than two hours.
The transfer facility is expected to be built on property that Gardiner Transfer Co. bought in the business park at the end of 2015. The company has already built a maintenance facility on the site, and the new facility will be operated by Troiano Transfer Station Inc.
Kyle Jacobson, a civil engineer with the civil engineering firm St. Germain, said during his presentation for a site plan review to the Gardiner Planning Board that the transfer station will be the drop-off point for municipal solid waste, construction and demolition debris and other classes of trash like bulky waste, tires and scrap metal from accounts across the region before it’s sorted and taken on to its final destination.
The commercial transfer station will handle waste from clients of the former Worthing’s Waste Systems and Troiano Waste Services that otherwise would have been trucked to the Troiano facility in South Portland. According to the project description in the application, the new facility will improve the efficiency of waste hauling by consolidating waste into larger trucks for transport to landfills.
It’s estimated that 50 tons each of municipal solid waste and construction and demolition debris could be handled by the transfer station initially, but depending on market conditions that amount could be as much as 200 tons of each per day.
“Our goal is to move the waste as quick as we can off the site,” T. J. Troiano, chief operating officer for Troiano Waste Services, said Tuesday.
Plans call for the construction of a 5,625-square-foot building, a truck scale and a 240-square-foot scale house to be built, along with a tipping pad for construction and demolition debris, a trailer staging area and internal roadways.
The Gardiner Transfer Co. facility is located at the south end of the business park, abutting the Interstate 295 right of way.
Troiano Waste Services, doing business as Gardiner Transfer Co., bought two lots at the south end of the the business park at the end of 2015.
At the time, the company’s plan was to build a maintenance facility worth at least $200,000 and consider whether a transfer station could also be built on the property.
Ten months ago, the company held a public information meeting at Gardiner City Hall, required by the state Department of Environmental Protection, signaling its intent to move forward with the plan.
The business park, located just off Interstate 295 and near Interstate 95, is also home to Pine State Trading and the Oak Grove Cemetery Association’s crematory, as well as PODS and Everett J. Prescott Inc., a waterworks distributor.
Libby Hill Business Park is part of Gardiner’s strategy to expand its tax base. A bond issue in 1999 and federal economic development funds paid for clearing 140 acres and some infrastructure costs.
In 2006, the city added 120 acres to the park, thanks to federal and state grants and local borrowing.
Troiano Waste Services bills itself as the largest independent waste hauling service in northern New England.
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