MAINE PUBLIC • January 9, 2026
A superior court judge has ruled in favor of the Penobscot Nation in an appeal over the expansion of the Juniper Ridge Landfill. The court ordered the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to redo a study that determined there was a public benefit associated with expansion. Justice Bruce Mallonee found that the DEP did not complete fact finding critical to its public benefit determination for the expansion of Juniper Ridge, the state-owned landfill in Old Town. He's now ordered the department to consider the cumulative environmental burdens placed on the Penobscot Nation and on the tribe's intimate relationship with the Penobscot River. By not considering those factors originally, the DEP failed to properly apply environmental justice standards required under Maine law. The Penobscot Nation and Conservation Law Foundation had appealed the DEP's public benefit finding.