AUGUSTA — As the complexities of running the city’s regional Hatch Hill landfill pile up, some city administrators are warning that the landfill needs its own dedicated leader.

The director’s position has remained vacant since the former director, Lesley Jones, was promoted to public works director in 2011.

Jones has spent more than 30 years overseeing operations at Hatch Hill landfill, first as the solid waste director and then, beginning in 2011, as part of her expanded duties as public works director. Jones said with the solid waste position vacant, oversight of Hatch Hill has had to compete with everything else on her plate as she leads the public works department.

And that plate is full, if not yet overflowing.

She said with the assistance of consultants they’ve managed to keep the landfill in compliance with myriad environmental regulations and, if sometimes just barely, have been able to meet deadlines. But the time has come where someone is needed to take on the role as their main responsibility, she said.

Augusta Public Works Director Lesley Jones says she cannot keep up with the responsibilities at the Hatch Hill landfill and says a landfill director is needed.  Kennebec Journal photo by Andy Molloy

“It is to the point where I am not able to keep up and am not producing the quality work that I want to (and should) provide for you,” Jones wrote in a memo to William Bridgeo, city manager.

Jones noted the problem has been compounded by a large turnover in staff at the facility that accepts trash from Augusta residents and from several surrounding member municipalities, and with the addition of a complex new system that takes methane gas created by rotting garbage in the landfill and converts it to electricity, which helps offset the city’s electricity costs.

She also said with the currently-in-use section of the landfill expected to reach capacity sometime around 2030, though that is 10 years later than originally projected, the city will need to start looking at what its residents will do with their solid waste in the future soon.

“Our next solid waste solution will require an analysis of available options for solid waste disposal including building an expansion at Hatch Hill,” Jones said. “The process of looking at options and then going through an approval process if we build a new transfer station or landfill will take several years so we need to start thinking about what that process will look like soon.”

Bridgeo said he recommends creating a new management position at Hatch Hill, which would be funded by the revenues Hatch Hill takes in. He said the enterprise fund where revenues from taking in trash at the landfill accumulate is “healthy enough to afford this position and operationally it is clear to me that it is warranted.”

An estimate of what the administrator’s position would require, in salary and benefits, was not immediately available Tuesday.

Councilors on Thursday are also scheduled to hear reports on the construction of a fishway at Togus Pond and on the water quality of Togus Pond; and discuss litigation, which the city is not involved in, between municipalities and a trade association representing the cable and telecommunications industry regarding local access channels.

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