This is the kind of BULLSHIT that the #PenobscotNation have been dealing with for years! WTF!

#Maine opens door for #landfill expansion despite community objections

By: Emma Davis - October 3, 2024

"The #JuniperRidgeLandfill is a step closer to an expansion that would allow for roughly 11 more years of use, despite continued objections from local residents and advocates concerned about the landfill’s impact on air and water quality in the region.

"In a decision released Wednesday, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection Melanie Loyzim determined there is a substantial public benefit from a proposal to increase the capacity of the facility in #OldTown and Alton, which means the #Casella subsidiary that operates it can now submit an application for a license to expand the facility.

"The decision has not stymied opposition. The #ConservationLawFoundation, an environmental advocacy organization, is prepared to challenge the determination, according to director of communities and toxics Alexandra St. Pierre.

"'This decision recklessly gambles with public health and the environment,' St. Pierre wrote in a statement following the decision. 'It dismisses the serious concerns raised by the Penobscot Nation and other nearby residents about the harmful effects this expansion will have on their health and community. We refuse to allow this dangerous expansion to proceed unchecked.'

"Juniper Ridge Landfill is owned by the state but managed by the Bureau of General Services, which contracts with #NEWSMELandfill Operations, LLC, a subsidiary of the waste management company #CasellaWasteManagement.

"Opened in 1993 and last expanded in 2017, the landfill currently disposes of just over half of landfill waste in Maine and is expected to exhaust its current capacity by 2028. BGS has proposed expanding the landfill by 61 acres, which at the current fill rate of about 1 million cubic yards of waste per year, would allow for roughly 11 more years of use.

"The #MaineDEP concluded that Casella’s proposed expansion is needed to meet Maine’s short- and long-term waste capacity needs and is consistent with the state’s waste reduction plans. From 2018 to 2022, Maine’s landfill waste increased by 24%. Waste generation continues to increase at approximately 5.6% per year.

"Further, the DEP determined that the expansion doesn’t conflict with #EnvironmentalJustice [BULLSHIT] — a new factor that had to be considered under a state law passed in 2021 — that is, as long as Casella meets a few conditions.

Environmental justice was among the concerns raised by environmental groups, local residents and the Penobscot Nation during public comment.

"The public argued there was insufficient treatment of landfill leachate — water that collects chemicals after passing through the waste — specifically for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, otherwise known as PFAS, which runs into the #PenobscotRiver.

"The Penobscot Nations’s reservation at Indian Island is located FIVE MILES from the landfill and also includes the Penobscot River, along which Juniper Ridge is located."

Read more:
https://mainemorningstar.com/2024/10/03/maine-opens-door-for-landfill-expansion-despite-community-objections/
#WaterIsLife #PFAS #PenobscotRiver #Biosolids #WabanakiConfederacy #EnvironmentalDestruction #EnvironmentalRacism

From the Bretton Woods Project: #Forests

"Finally, the [#WorldBank] ’s #forest policy and #WeakSafeguards on #ForestProtection have also been observed to infringe the rights of local communities and have failed to protect one of the planet’s most important ‘#CarbonSinks’ (see Observer Spring 2017). CSOs have called for the Bank to open up its Forest Notes – which are meant to guide the interface between its lending and forests – to consultation (see Observer Winter 2017-2018). CSOs have also been highly critical of one of the forest initiatives the Bank manages, the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), a climate investment fund that supports Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) projects. A March 2017 post in REDD Monitor called the FCPF, 'the most cost-inefficient tree-saving scheme ever,' owing to high administrative costs between fiscal years 2009-2015 absorbing 64 per cent of FCFP’s $55 million expenditure. More generally, the Bank’s overall approach to lending has undermined the protection of vital natural ecosystems in borrower countries. As noted by Bruce Rich in his influential 2013 book, Foreclosing the Future: The World Bank and the Politics of Environmental Destruction, 'When one examines the failures to conserve ecosystems, or to mitigate environmental impacts of development, one finds that failed governance at all levels is almost invariably at the root. …Many of [the Bank’s] problems are associated with a dysfunctional institutional culture in which the relentless pressure to move money out the door, even in violation of the Bank’s own policies and rules, often overrides all other considerations.'"

2017: World Bank policy lending undermines climate goals

"One of the main problems is the Bank’s refusal to adequately assess the social and environmental risks of their policy loans" - Harlem Mariño, Derechos, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales

6 April 2017

"A late January report by US-based NGO Bank Information Center (BIC), together with partners in Egypt, Indonesia, Mozambique and Peru, claimed that the Bank is undermining its climate commitments by supporting investment incentives for coal, gas and oil projects through its development policy financing (DPF) mechanism. DPF accounts for approximately a third of all Bank funding and provides resources for programmes of policy and institutional reforms that are agreed by the Bank and the borrowing government (see Update 82). The report argued that the Bank’s financing through DPF contradicts the internationally agreed and Bank-supported goal of limiting the global average temperature increase to 2°C, which according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would require that at least two-thirds of existing fossil fuel reserves are left in the ground.

"BIC’s report looked at the Bank’s DPF measures in four countries: Egypt, Indonesia, Mozambique and Peru. It found that DPF introduced subsidies for coal in all countries, apart from Peru. For example, the report argued that Bank-supported subsidies for coal infrastructure have helped Indonesia become one of the world’s top coal exporters. It found some DPF support for renewable energy, but argued that the Bank could do more given that all countries examined have potential to develop renewable energy. For example, while Peru’s DPF provides subsidies to public-private partnerships to develop oil and gas infrastructure, it does not include plans for solar or wind power projects."

https://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2017/04/world-bank-policy-lending-undermines-climate-goals/

#FCPF #REDD #Ecosystems #ProtectTheForests #EnvironmentalDestruction #ForestDegradation #Deforestation #EnvironmentalImpacts #Egypt #Indonesia #Mozambique #Peru #LeaveItInTheGround #Coal #BigOilAndGas #ExtractiveIndustries #Exploitation #EnvironmentalImpacts
#HumanRights #ParisAgreement
#ParisClimateAgreement #BigOilAndGas #CorporateColonialism #IMFLoanSharks #RenewablesNow