Southwest Harbor Board Seeks Deeper Soil Tests for Trundy Farm Plan Near Landfill
Dec 03, 2025
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Havana.
SOUTHWEST HARBOR—After a split vote of the planning board over whether to accept a soil test that’s a condition of approval, the proposed Trundy Farm subdivision near an uncontrolled landfill site has still not been given the go-ahead.
The board conditionally approved 12-lot Trundy Farm Subdivision, which is by the six-acre Worcester Landfill off the Long Pond Road in Southwest Harbor, September 30, stipulating it needed soil sampling first to make sure that homes weren’t built on soil contaminated by toxic chemicals or heavy metals.
However, the board didn’t stipulate the depth of those test sites or explicitly say where those samples should be.
It received soil sampling results from Haley Ward, Inc., which was hired by Ben “Lee” Worcester, the applicant.
Worcester is also the planning board’s vice chair. He has recused himself from the planning board discussion, but participated as an applicant. Member Mike Levesque also stepped down from the conversation because he lives close by.
Worcester’s family owns Eastern Maine Recycling, which is a local transfer station. The family also owns the landfill on Long Pond Road, which is being monitored by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. The subdivision is near both the Eastern Maine Recycling (EMR) facility and the Worcester landfill site.
At the December 2 meeting, after board members split on whether to accept a finding of fact over a submitted soil test by Haley Ward, members then proposed to retest the soil in the subdivision at a deeper depth at multiple sites with non-composite results.
Planning board member Priscilla Ksionzyk said her concern “I just worry that this is going to come back and bite the town of Southwest Harbor in the ass in 20 years.”
Ksionzyk was worried about the environmental impact, and along with member Charlotte Gill, the shallowness of the testing sites, which were six inches deep.
“You gave us what we asked for” Ksionzyk later said.
“And apparently that’s unacceptable,” Worcester replied.
“Be very careful in responding to the request for acceptable testing requirements. A study to provide that information should be next step,” said geologist Doug Rissing in the Zoom chat that was available for the meeting. “No one on this board is qualified.”
Eventually, Worcester asked for specific guidance from the planning board about any potential future soil tests. He would then take that to consultants and see what his next steps might be.
“I need to know what the planning board wants,” Worcester said.
Board members agreed to have multiple new testing sites taking individual (non-composite) samples at specific locations at a depth of six feet and analyze those samples for the same chemicals as the initial test. If Worcester has those tests done, they will be submitted at a future meeting.
THE INITIAL DELAY
The final planning board approval had initially been delayed as some members questioned the methodology of the samples and if the testing complied to state standards for locations near landfills. In the end, a split board voted on November 18 to postpone the decision until its December 2 meeting. Chair Eric Davis, Gill, Ksionzyk, and Joel Wolak originally voted in favor of postponement, John Williams voted against it.
The samples, collected October 3, were meant to be the final part of the approval process for the subdivision.
Haley Ward focused on arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, selenium, silver, volatile organic carbons (VOCs) and perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroakyl (PFAS) levels. At the December 2 meeting, Haley Ward representative Craig Bagley said via Zoom that they looked to those contaminants because of the previous meeting and newspaper articles.
The Haley Ward report said that the company only found arsenic (5.5mg/kg) above the accepted level. It added that arsenic surficial soil concentrations in Maine average at approximately 8.6 mg/kg.
However, some planning board members and members of the public were concerned that the test sites were only six inches deep.
Pollution from the landfill has been found in groundwater east and south of the site. The landfill has existed for almost 100 years. It was last used in the 1990s.
WHAT STANDARDS OR GUIDELINES OR RULES TO USE
At the December 2 meeting, Gill said she was concerned that the testing hadn’t met the state’s requirements. She went to the state website and found the applicable Maine state standards for an environmental review of land next to an uncontrolled hazardous substance site.
She believes that based on state standards, the testing was insufficient.
Davis said the state’s guidelines are appropriate and could be adopted into the ordinance, but it hadn’t yet been done.
“It’s just not there,” he said, “and if it’s not there, it’s not there.”
He reasoned that the board could only make decisions on what is in the ordinance.
Others, including members of the public, worried about the risk to public safety and found that within the board’s purview.
“We can be more stringent than what the state asks for, but we can never be less,” Gill said.
Davis said that those are state guidelines not rules towns must abide by.
Worcester’s attorney Jonathan Pottle of Kathadin Law agreed, both arguing that the test is valid and that the board’s ordinance lacks specific standards for properties near a landfill and that the state guidelines are non-binding.
Former select board member Vallette asked if there was a conflict of interest for Pottle representing the applicant and the MRC, which Worcester is on. Pottle replied that he did not.
PUBLIC COMMENT
Members of the public mostly spoke against the subdivision being approved or had questions about process.
“I’m hearing a blatant willingness by some members of the planning board to allow a patently inadequate report as counting as sufficient for approving this subdivision,” Craig Kesselheim said during public comment via Zoom. “We heard from Haley Ward representative tonight, the quote I wrote down, ‘Obviously, we don’t know what’s below six inches,’ and they had a time constraint.”
Kesselheim continued, “So, I’m hearing some of you in the planning board saying because we had a licensed agency conduct the test, that’s enough, even though we can’t verify that public safety now and into the future is secure. So, you’re willing to vote for this potentially at the cost to public health. That’s what I’m hearing. And in clear contradiction, as your members on my left of the table, to your right, have mentioned to state guidelines by the DEP, which are recommending very different procedures and protocols. And I just want to comment that I feel like your procedural work tonight is inadequate and embarrassing.”
Nick Loizeaux said during comment, “I guess my question would be, for Haley Ward, and it would be if you wrote a phase one, just a desktop exercise seeking to acquire the Trundy Farm subdivision, would you recommend sampling for residential redevelopment?”
His question wasn’t answered. Typically during public comment, the board may choose to answer questions or not.
A man who only identified himself as Jack said he wanted to support Worcester.
“I want to stick up for Lee a little bit here, because he did what he was asked, and he didn’t even have to do that, and we’d have to approve it as it was,” Jack said. “So, as much as I would not like it approved, I think we have to approve it.”
Others disagreed.
Loizeaux later added, “I think in a phase one environmental site assessment prepared for the Trundy Farm redevelopment by qualified professionals from anywhere in the State of Maine, anywhere across the country, there would be an overwhelming weight towards sampling on this property for the protection of public health and not the sampling that occurred.”
On the Zoom chat Rissing asked if there was a map of the sampling site locations.
“There was a sample taken off of every one of those subdivision lots except one,” Worcester said.
THE VALLETTE MEMO
Vallette has been a vocal opponent to the project, gathering information to support his view, speaking at public comment at select board and planning board meetings, and also as part of a citizens’ petition that requires soil testing near the landfill or any other Maine DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) uncontrolled designated sites.
A citizens’ initiative in Southwest Harbor that called for testing of soil contaminants for any property within a half-mile of anywhere the state has deemed “an uncontrolled site” prior to any land use that requires permitting resoundingly passed 554-187, November 4.
Approximately two hours before the December 2 meeting, Vallette sent an email to select board and planning board members and others about what he alleges are errors in the Trundy Farm Subdivision application process.
The first is that EMR is not the only owner of the subdivided lot. The application, he said, was submitted by EMR in June. Then on August 18, he writes, “a day before the board held a public hearing on the application, EMR carved out three new lots within Map 13, Lot 14. It filed two quitclaim covenants with deeds to the Hancock County Registry of Deeds. The first grants a portion of Map 13, Lot 14, to Worcester Associates. The second grants a portion to Mark Worcester, Ben Worcester, and Demaris Smith. The remaining property is still owned by EMR. Thus, there are three lots where there was one.”
This made a buffer between the proposed Trundy subdivision and other property owners. Three different parties, he writes, own the lot to be subdivided, but there’s been no proof that they’ve authorized EMR to act on their behalf.
Vallette also alleged that the planning board was not informed that the lot was already subdivided. He alleged that the intention was to keep abutters from appealing any planning board decision.
His second issue is that there was no application filed to subdivide the lot this way. This, he believes, makes the application invalid and suggests the town speak with an attorney to determine if this is so.
The third issue was that the Town of Southwest Harbor is an abutter to the property, but the town was not noticed about the project when it was filed, which is required. This was also stated by the town at a recent select board meeting. The town had a similar issue when not all abutters were informed about a project on the Clark Point Road, which had to go to the planning board.
Those questions were mostly not discussed by the board.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
Soil Testing Questions Delay Decision on Subdivision Near Southwest Harbor Landfill
Southwest Harbor Planning Board and Code Enforcement Page
To read/listen to planning board minutes
The packet of materials including the full Haley Ward document.
To listen to the meeting, click here.
A pdf file of the Vallette document is below.
Sb Memo 2 Dec 2025
279KB ∙ PDF file
A NOTE FROM US
This is Carrie and Shaun, and as you’ve probably noticed, we’ve been working hard at the Bar Harbor Story, providing local news in a way that keeps you informed, but also embraces and promotes community and the good that is within it.
We take so much time—just the two of us, with a special needs kid that has to be homeschooled—to cover our island community’s (plus, Trenton) local news in a way that’s timely, daily, and remembers that underneath the news . . . there are people who are our neighbors.
We are working hard to get the news out there—for free—for everyone. But it’s taking its toll on our family financially and honestly, sometimes, emotionally, because frontline local news in a small community? It’s hard.
Most media isn’t local (even when it claims it is). Most media has paywalls and advertisers. We don’t. That’s not a smart financial decision for us. It’s a moral one. And we’re going to try to do it for as long as we can because we’re local, we’re passionate, and we’re all about getting the news to everyone—no paywalls.
Why?
Richard Stengel, writing in The Atlantic, said, “Paywalls create a two-tiered system: credible, fact-based information for people who are willing to pay for it, and murkier, less-reliable information for everyone else. Simply put, paywalls get in the way of informing the public, which is the mission of journalism.”
As a paper that is owned and staffed only by locals, we make every attempt to gather all of the facts for our readers, information that might not be part of the main story and/or information that may not be known even to our towns’ officials, but is still just as important, if not more important, to the story.
We currently have well over 5,000 subscribers, the vast majority of them free, with over 401,500 article reads every month. Every one of our stories is opened at least 3,500 times. Most are opened well over that amount.
To continue to provide you with fact-based, non-editorialized news, we really need your support! If you’d like to support us or subscribe? It would mean the world to us, and to the Bar Harbor Story!
There are a few ways to do that:
- You can send us a one-time support via this link here. It will say “Carrie Jones Books” because that’s what our PayPal account is through.
- You can become a paid subscriber at either site here (scroll to bottom) or here (scroll to bottom).
- Your business or nonprofit can sponsor the Bar Harbor Story with a banner ad. More information on that is here.
THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR COMMITMENT TO ALL OF OUR COMMUNITY
Discover more from Bar Harbor Story
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.