Wasting away | A composter's regulatory fight could leave businesses scrambling

On a sunny, brisk February morning at his farm in Lyman, Bob St. Onge recalls the rain that changed everything. Sitting in a chair in Winterwood Farm’s office, thumbs tucked under his Dickies coveralls, St. Onge remembers the record rainfall that fell on York County in 2005, a deluge that precipitated the farm’s collapse from a profitable agricultural composter to a farm on the brink of closure. The heavy rains overflowed a holding pond on the farm, which the state says has led to the ongoing pollution of a nearby brook. St. Onge’s ensuing dispute with the Department of Environmental Protection over the incident, and his efforts to fix the problem, has cost so much, financially and personally, that the farm may shut down after more than 30 years under his operation, St. Onge says. The department’s enforcement actions have scared off customers, federal officials offering assistance and potential financers, he says. All this after the farm established a reputation as a well-run organic waste handler that produced a quality compost product sold in 11 states. St. Onge points to awards on a dusty shelf in the farm’s office. He was recognized by the Maine Small Business Development Centers in 2002 as a successful small business, and was a partner in a composting operation that earned a 2001 Governor’s Award for waste reduction and recycling. Now, St. Onge’s relationship with the state is muddied with violation notices and a lawsuit against him for noncompliance.

Shutting down Winterwood would deprive Maine of one of its largest agricultural composters, leaving hundreds of businesses to scramble for alternative waste handlers. At the same time the DEP wrangles with Winterwood over compliance, it’s also promoting rule changes designed to encourage more commercial composting in Maine. Complaints about DEP’s prohibitive permitting process have led to a push to shift primary oversight of such operations to the more farmer-friendly Department of Agriculture. None of it is likely to help Winterwood, however, unless St. Onge can resolve his compliance violations. While he sees his efforts as a noble stand against an inept regulator, the DEP sees a stubborn lack of cooperation and failure to address an environmental hazard. “I’m fighting for every farmer that’s in the state of Maine,” St. Onge says. His wife, Judy, steps away from paperwork in the next room and comes to his side. “I’ve tightened my belt as much as I can,” he says. “This is win or die.”

St. Onge admits he’s no “tree-hugging, dirt-loving type,” but it satisfies him to play a role in returning organic waste to the earth. His composting method starts with lobster shells, food scraps, paper and other trash that is mixed with manure from area farms. It’s left to break down naturally and bagged up according to Winterwood recipes for sale as compost. “We can’t produce enough of it. We sell out every year,” St. Onge says. Winterwood also raises Belted Galloway cattle, pigs and chickens and sells organic vegetables. But a look at the farm’s numbers since the DEP fight began paints a grim picture, despite income from major clients like Whole Foods and Cozy Harbor Seafood. In 2006, Winterwood earned $1.1 million in annual sales. Now, that figure is just under $700,000. The farm had more than 100 clients before its problems with DEP, now it has eight. The St. Onges were once the town’s largest employers, with 13 workers earning $11-$16 an hour plus benefits. Now, the farm has three employees, none of whom receive benefits. In 2006, Winterwood picked up 22,000 yards of manure from area farms. Today, that number is down to 16,000. The beef herd has dwindled from 60 heads of cattle to 30. The St. Onges even closed the farm temporarily but reopened in December, determined to make a go of it. Still, they operate under Chapter 12 bankruptcy. St. Onge estimates the whole ordeal, including work on his property, lawyers’ fees and lost revenue, has cost him nearly $500,000.

The state would argue that many of those costs are self-inflicted. The Attorney General’s Office has brought a suit against Winterwood for failing to honor compliance requirements, says Andrew Fisk, director of the DEP’s Bureau of Land and Water Quality. It all began in late 2005, when the DEP found that a naturally occurring fungus had bloomed to unacceptable levels in nearby Lord’s Brook, a tributary of the Kennebunk River, due to nutrient runoff from Winterwood’s detention pond. Biologists who have worked for the DEP for decades said they had never seen a stream impacted as heavily as Lord’s Brook was at that time, Fisk says. Aquatic life in the stream remains substandard and St. Onge has not made good on resolving his environmental violations, he says. “The state’s position is we’ve given him ample opportunities to come into compliance with the law,” Fisk says, adding that St. Onge’s “ideological fight” has prohibited a resolution.

Meanwhile, St. Onge contends that the state’s proposed remedies are not scientifically based and bureaucratic red tape has prevented him from taking common-sense measures to address the problem. For instance, the DEP forbade him from plugging up the runoff without first conducting engineering studies and navigating the department’s lengthy permitting process, St. Onge says.

St. Onge wants to expand the retention pond using USDA guidelines, but DEP is applying conflicting state standards and blocking USDA funding, he says.

Talking trash

When Karl Ekstedt first considered revamping his waste collection business to include composting, Bob St. Onge’s name rose to the top of the list. Ekstedt, owner of Oceanside Rubbish in Wells, began working with Winterwood five years ago to set up an organic recycling program that now serves more than 300 restaurants, hotels and other clients in York County. His trucks pick up 1,000 tons of waste a year and haul it to Winterwood, which charges Oceanside Rubbish a processing fee that’s cheaper than fees charged by landfills or incinerators, he says. So, Ekstedt promised clients that if they separated their waste, 70% of which is compostable, he could guarantee their costs wouldn’t rise. Just the payoff of knowing their trash wouldn’t wind up in a landfill was enough to convince many customers, he says: “I actually have people that are willing to pay more to do this than to throw it away.”

If Winterwood goes under, Ekstedt will lose the five-year investment of time, money and training he’s made in the program. One of the farm’s key advantages is its location. Without it, Oceanside Rubbish and other Winterwood customers would have to truck their waste to more distant composters — the closest being Kay-Ben Farm in Gorham, which can’t handle all of Winterwood’s waste — or out of state. The added fuel costs alone could be enough to shut down his entire operation, Ekstedt says. “I’d have an awful lot of unhappy customers if we had to stop this program because of the bottom line.” He knows of St. Onge’s troubles with the DEP, but is convinced the department could work with the farm to resolve the environmental issues.

Bud Danis, owner of Oarweed Restaurant in Ogunquit, was skeptical when Ekstedt approached him a few years ago about the program. Now, he’s a convert. He’s no liberal, he says, but he takes comfort knowing that his restaurant’s waste isn’t going to a landfill or the Maine Energy Recovery Co. incinerator in Saco, a source of odor complaints that many criticize DEP for failing to address. Customers appreciate his efforts to reduce the restaurant’s carbon footprint, and it’s cheaper per pound to dispose of his trash with Oceanside Rubbish, Danis says. “Even if it weren’t, the fact that it’s going to a recycling place and going back to the environment would be worth it.” In fact, there’s a good chance the lobster shells from his restaurant are nourishing his wife’s home garden — the couple buys Winterwood’s compost. The farm makes a quality product and contributes to Maine’s green image, and state officials’ inflexibility with St. Onge sends the wrong message, he says. “I would hate to see an operation like that go out of business,” Danis says. “It’s totally against what I think Maine should be saying to the rest of the nation.”

Rethinking regulation

Winterwood presents a tricky problem for the state. On one hand, St. Onge’s lack of compliance creates a headache and contributes to unresolved environmental concerns. On the other, his farm’s departure from Maine’s composting scene could cause waste generators to revert to landfills rather than pay to truck their waste an additional 50 miles to another facility. That’s exactly what architects of the state’s waste handling goals don’t want. They’re trying to push generators toward composting and away from landfills and incinerators. “It’s something that we certainly want to see more of,” says Jetta Antonakos of the Maine State Planning Office. “There continues to be a need for facilities accepting waste from commercial establishments.”

Other waste-handling facilities are aware of Winterwood’s compliance problems and have pitched in to help spread the load, says Mark King, an environmental specialist with DEP and director of the Maine Compost School in Monmouth. The state can “probably” absorb Winterwood’s waste, but it won’t be easy, he said. “The problem that tends to be the monkey wrench thrown into the machinery is that all these facilities are located at a distance from the generating facilities.”

A rulemaking revision under way at DEP seeks to alleviate the regulatory hassle of entering the composting business. Operators would be allowed to accept 30 cubic yards of food waste over 30 days without a permit from DEP. That’s equivalent to dumping about six 32-gallon trash cans into a pile every day for a month. Add the fact that the regulations don’t account for water weight, and the allowed volume isn’t enough to sustain a business, St. Onge argues. After four to six days, 30 cubic yards of watermelon all but disappears in a compost pile, he says. “You’re not going to produce a product. You’re not going to have enough to do it.” He also opposes a provision that allows operators who use 70% of the compost on their property to accept unlimited volumes, saying composters who sell the bulk of their product shouldn’t fall under different standards.

In a regulatory shift that St. Onge favors, the Department of Agriculture would have oversight under the new rules, though DEP would still enforce wastewater compliance. Operators who exceed the limit would still need a DEP permit. Agriculture officials would help composters develop a management plan detailing elements like estimated volumes, compost recipes and necessary equipment. The state wants to discourage operators who seek profits from tipping fees on the front end, but fail to develop quality compost products on the back end, King says. “We want to see this type of composting develop in a very controlled way.” DEP would make site visits only in the company of an Agriculture official, which would allow farmers to get to know DEP employees, many of whom have never visited a farm, he said. “[Farmers] sense a regulatory presence as opposed to someone who wants to help out,” King says.

That’s because farmers recognize Agriculture as the authority on composting, not DEP, according to Sen. John Nutting, (D-Leeds). He’s sponsoring legislation that would transfer primary oversight of all fish and food composters, no matter the size, to the Department of Agriculture and do away with the DEP’s new rules. Agriculture runs the Maine Compost School and already successfully oversees operators who compost leaves, manure and slaughterhouse waste, Nutting says. The DEP’s rules are a one-size-fits-all approach, he says, and under LD 351 each composter would be assigned site-specific volume limits based on factors including size, years in operation and proximity to water. Maine is the only state in which fish and food waste is not regulated by an agriculture department, he says. “We have all these potential agricultural composters that would like to take seafood and food waste and don’t dare to because of the regulatory structure,” Nutting says. He attributes Portland’s recent problems with shrimp shells and antennae clogging up the sewer system to the shortage of such facilities, saying seafood processors with limited options wind up dumping their waste.

Bob St. Onge has hosted regulators on his property nearly every day for much of the last few years. It’s a far cry from the days when Winterwood served as “the poster child for DEP,” he says. Before the dispute, he bailed the state out of a number of fixes, including taking 55,000 tons of rotten fish from an operation in Winter Harbor, and cleaning out 150 farms with manure management problems, he says. The state once brought politicians from Ireland to the farm to educate them about outdoor composting. He gives tours to area school groups. His whole business model is based on environmentally responsible practices, so St. Onge struggles with the fact that he’s perceived by many as a polluter. In his eyes, and in those of many of his customers, Winterwood transforms waste into a viable product that brings money and jobs to the state. More than 80% of the organic waste he accepts is shipped out of Maine in the form of compost. “What more could they ask?” he wonders of the state, with his Australian cattle dog, Dig, curled up under his desk. According to Fisk of the DEP, Winterwood’s history of contributions “doesn’t excuse blatantly violating water quality standards.” But St. Onge won’t rest until the DEP relinquishes control over operations like his to the Department of Agriculture. It’s a commitment that has tested his livelihood and his family’s patience. “We believe in what we’re doing,” he says. “It’s bettering the environment.”

Jackie Farwell, Mainebiz staff reporter, can be reached at jfarwell@mainebiz.biz.