When Game Warden Tom McKenny found piles of trash on private property on Martin Stream Road in Fairfield last week, he wasn’t surprised. He’d been dealing with the same issue on the land for two years.

The old logging roads on the property are strewn with trash bags and large items like old couches, televisions, toilets and mattresses.

McKenny isn’t sure why people would dump their trash on the property rather than going to the town transfer station.

“It’s kind of pathetic,” McKenny said. “I think it’s just laziness.”

The Fairfield site is a notorious one for the Maine Warden Service, which usually gets calls about dumping sites, but there are thousands like it around the state. Often hidden down logging roads, in the woods or otherwise out of the public eye, Maine’s dumping issue isn’t visible to many, but its impact is huge, not only on the environment, but on the state’s traditionally generous public access land use.

Getting more attention than most dumping issues recently was the case of two dozen buckets filled with soiled adult diapers dumped along streams in Farmington and Wilton. That case was called unusual by the Maine Warden Service because it was on public land and the nature of what was dumped. But illegal dumping itself is anything but unusual in Maine — it’s a quality-of-life issue often cited by landowners whose land is defiled.

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With 94 percent of its land private, Maine has a nearly four-century tradition of allowing public use. But landowners, in an influential 2008 survey by the University of Maine’s Jessica Leahy, say the biggest reason to cut off that use is littering and illegal dumping.

Nearly 40 percent of the landowners surveyed reported that the public does things on their land that they don’t want, with littering as the top problem and illegal dumping right behind. About 30 percent of private landowners were “actively considering” placing restrictions or prohibiting access in the future to their property, primarily because of problems with littering and illegal dumping, according to the research.

“You could have all the positive use you could imagine — grandfathers taking their grandkids fishing — but it really only takes one bad incident for the landowner to close off access to the land,” she said.

The pervasive and difficult-to-solve problem tends to frustrate law enforcement, land owners and recreation users alike, said Leahy, an associate professor in UMaine’s School of Forest Resources at the University of Maine, who specializes in land use issues.

“Much of illegal dumping is not from recreation users,” she said. “It’s from local people who are not using their transfer station.”

With most of the residents of central and northern Maine dependent on town transfer stations rather than municipal garbage pickup, Leahy said dumping often happens because people don’t want to pay to dispose of garbage, the transfer station hours don’t fit their schedule or because they have items that are difficult to dispose of, such as tires, appliances or building materials.

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The warden service, which deals with the issue daily, has taken the lead on an initiative to get landowners and users to work together to solve the problem, one that’s also echoed in a bill before the Legislature that’s supported by many outdoors business and recreation advocates, including the Small Woodland Owners of Maine, which advocates for landowners.

Cpl. John MacDonald, spokesman for the Maine Warden Service, said posting the land against use is up to a landowner.

“A lot of large landowners choose not to post their land,” he said. “They don’t need to (leave it open), but they choose to because they want to let people recreate.”

Generally, game wardens deal with illegal dumping issues with private landowners and are trying to maintain a relationship that lets the land stay open for public use, said MacDonald. But wardens see the same things Leahy’s study found.

“If you have somebody dumping garbage on your land, you have a tendency to want to shut the land down,” he said.

DUMPING GROUNDS

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When Mario Carrier bought a large tract of land off Martin Stream Road in Fairfield two years ago, his goal was to let the young trees on the property grow so his brother could harvest them through his logging company.

The property — on a remote section of dirt road near the Norridgewock town line — isn’t posted, which means it’s open for public use.

Last fall, Carrier got a letter from a hunter asking if he could go on the property. He agreed. Shortly after, the hunter sent him another letter, this time with photos of trash that had been dumped in the woods on the 450-acre tract.

Not long after that, a game warden called and said there was more dumping and they were looking for the people who had done it.

“There’s no doubt it bothers me,” Carrier said. “If there is no cost to go to the transfer station, I don’t know why people don’t. Somebody was very negligent.”

He plans to clean up the property but hasn’t had time yet. He also hasn’t posted the land against public use, but does plan to put up signs warning against dumping.

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“It’s too bad. It’s almost like you have to tell people to breathe. They should know they have to breathe,” he said.

The lack of signs warning people off the land makes Carrier part of a tradition that dates back to Maine’s Great Ponds Act of 1641. The law has had some minor changes over the years but still allows anyone to cross private land for hunting, fishing and now other recreational purposes, and has promoted a recreation culture of open land access in Maine.

Landowners can post their land if they want hunters or people in general to stay off it, but many don’t.

In Mount Vernon, George Smith, the former executive director of the Sportman’s Alliance of Maine, finally posted his land after years of finding garbage on it.

Smith said until he posted his land three years ago to ban public use of his property, he was constantly finding garbage strewn about his land.

“One time my fire pit was full of Bud Light cans,” he said. “It was just infuriating.”

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Smith said if someone knocks on his door and asks him if they can use his land, he generally says yes. But he still continuously cleans up garbage on his road and in the area.

“I’m out there every day,” he said. “I can’t keep up with it.”

While litter is a daily bother — Smith said Bud Light, Marlboro cigarettes and chocolate milk seem to be favorites of litterers — he also frequently finds appliances, air conditioners and tires on his land.

‘THEY JUST DON’T CARE’

Anger over illegal dumping took center stage in Farmington and Wilton last month when five-gallon buckets full of used adult diapers were found dumped along Martin Stream.

The Maine Warden Service asked twice in April for the public’s help in catching whoever is responsible for dumping at least 24 buckets full of dirty diapers in streams and along riverbanks in the two Franklin County towns.

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Hundreds of posters have made irate comments on online articles and social media posts about the diaper dumping, voicing disgust over the idea of polluting a river and decrying the dumping as “environmental sabotage.” Some have bemoaned that Mainers “have far too few places left that haven’t been spoiled by thoughtless people” and that the dumper was “ruining everything we as wildlife enthusiasts are trying to achieve.”

MacDonald, of the warden service, said the case of bucket dumping in two streams is being investigated by Warden Kris McCabe. The warden service’s request for the public’s help has led to some good tips, he said.

MacDonald said illegal dumping is a problem statewide that the agency deals with “somewhat routinely,” though the dumping case in Farmington and Wilton is unusual because it involves public land and a large quantity of buckets being thrown away repeatedly in two streams.

He’s concerned the dumping will harm the water quality and fish and is a “general eyesore.”

“They’re relatively good buckets to just throw in the river. … It’s a very unusual case,” MacDonald said. “I’ve been a warden for 17 years, and I haven’t really seen anything like it.”

While the diaper dumping has given the issue more attention than it would normally get, Smith, who writes columns and blogs for the Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal, said the case is simply a reflection of the statewide problem. It’s not uncommon to find dumping on public property. It’s just that there’s so little public property in relation to private land.

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He said that a few years ago, volunteers cleaned up the Alonzo Garcelon wildlife management area in northeast Augusta and “a month later it was totally trashed again.”

The effort to ease the problem has increased for a couple years, spearheaded by the warden service.

While it can be difficult to track down the perpetrators of illegal dumping, the warden service has had good luck soliciting the public’s help through social media and the news with lots of outraged response from the public. “Sometimes that anger can help,” MacDonald said.

The Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, which oversees the warden service, earlier this year started making available Landowner Relations Relief Kits, which include signs, padlocks and surveillance cameras, as well as bags to give land users.

Wardens for the last year have also been pushing a program that gives out free garbage bags to land users, urging them to pick up trash they find on land.

Cpl. Rick LaFlamme, director of the Warden Service Outdoor Partners program, said the goal is for landowners and land users to work together to solve the problem.

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The bags, which bear messages such as “Thank a landowner, pick it up” are as much about “what’s on the bag as what’s in it,” LaFlamme said.

He said the bags slogans are important, because the bags won’t pick up everything.

Wardens daily find “everything from someone cleaning out their ashtray, or fast-food wrappers to someone cleaning out an entire garage,” he said.

The service has had 100,000 bags produced, lined up sponsors like Cabela’s and L.L. Bean, where anyone can pick them up, and plans a social media blitz, including a picture of the week contest for trash picker-uppers.

He said they’re hoping to make a dent, so more land doesn’t get closed off to outdoor recreation.

But the ultimate solution is still elusive. “If I had the answer, I’d be a millionaire,” LaFlamme said. “There’s no easy answer.

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“Some people don’t care. They just don’t care.”

Smith agreed: “People are just slobs. That’s all there is to it.”

CLEANUP BILL

Smith is supporting a bill, L.D. 1321, under consideration by the Joint Standing Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife that he believes would expand the Maine Warden Service’s landowner relations program.

The bill includes a Keep Maine Clean program, which would be an outreach program aimed at outdoor enthusiasts who use private land, asking them to help encourage good relations with landowners.

Smith said the program would recruit volunteers to pick up trash while they use public and private land.

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It also calls for creating a website for the project and a monthly email newsletter for the volunteers and adding discussion of the need to build positive relationships with landowners to the state’s hunter safety course.

Maj. Chris Cloutier of the Maine Warden Service, representing Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, spoke in opposition, saying wardens already work on landowner relations and are developing more initiatives, like a landowner cleanup month with incentives for whoever picks up the most garbage.

He also said the landowner relief kits provide tools to immediately address relations problems between landowners and land users.

“We feel that each agency that deals with public access to private property should have a healthy landowner relations program in place to address areas that fall under their jurisdiction,” Cloutier testified before the committee. “Much of what this bill is trying to accomplish is currently occurring under the program in place today.”

Cloutier said the bill doesn’t propose funding to absorb any cost of its mandates, though Smith said he doesn’t think that his plan would have a cost, but just shift duties.

The bill is supported by other groups such as the Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine, which supports the interests of private landowners.

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DUMPERS VS. LAND USERS

Leahy and the others point out, though, that the issue is about more than just land owners and land users, and in many cases, has to do with ease, cost and access to garbage disposal.

Many transfer stations have fee schedules for different bulk items and electronics.

The Hatch Hill dump in Augusta, for instance, has a two-page elaborate fee schedule, setting out price-per-pound fees for everything from sheet metal and asphalt shingles and cedar shingles to minimum fees and price-per-net-ton fees for tires.

On Kingfield’s fee list, items like refrigerators require a $12 drop-off fee. Tires cost $3 each for disposal.

In Farmington, getting rid of a television set will cost $5, and there is an $8 fee to dispose of a couch

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Waterville started a “pay-as-you-throw” program last year wherein residents have to pay per bag of garbage. Some residents complained that the added cost of the official city trash bag promoted illegal dumping, though other city officials said they didn’t think it was credible to blame the program for that.

In Fairfield, the site of the frequent dumping on Mario Carrier’s land, the transfer station is open six days a week and has fees for some items, but is mostly free for town residents.

Some towns are trying to address these issues. In Belgrade, town homeowners can get a free punch card that allows a certain amount of bulky or costly waste to be dropped off before fees are charged. The town also amended its solid waste ordinance so that it can patrol for illegal dumping and enforce town ordinances without having to call the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Department or Maine State Police (the town has no police force). The town also has plans to install surveillance cameras in frequent dump areas.

Leahy and others want solutions that target the dumpers who are not, in many cases, those using the land.

She said that based on research on the issue, her biggest recommendation is that the groups with an interest in keeping private land open should work together with landowners to find common ground and solutions.

Leahy said that approach could play out in many ways. A town that wants outdoor recreation users to come to the community and have access could offer a free day at the transfer station. The landowner could get the illegally dumped material taken away without any cost. An outdoor recreation group, like an ATV club, could volunteer to clean up an area to promote good relations.

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“There is a chance for them to work together to address the problem of a few bad apples that are ruining our tradition of public access to private land,” she said.

Fairfield landowner Carrier said one possible solution would be to offer an incentive for people to bring old furniture to the dump or other drop-off points, similar to the refunds that grocery stores give for recyclable bottles.

“It would be hard to control,” he said. “It wouldn’t be impossible though, and that way you wouldn’t have to police anything.

“If the dump was able to pay you for your tires, no one would throw tires away because they would get $5 or $10 for the tire. Instead of seeing them on the side of the road, maybe people would pick them up.”

Rachel Ohm — 612-2368

rohm@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @rachel_ohm


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