$13.4M job to close troubled Bucksport landfill starts years after state order

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 18, 2026

Work has started to permanently shut down a dormant landfill that for decades took waste from Bucksport’s former paper mill, three years after the Maine Department of Environmental Protection ordered it to close after finding it wasn’t complying with its operating permit. The 109-acre property off River Road/Route 15 is owned by Montreal-based scrap metal company American Iron & Metal, which bought the Verso paper mill and its holdings, including the landfill and three area dams, following the mill’s 2014 closure. The long-awaited work likely marks the end of AIM’s apparent efforts to delay an end-of-year closure deadline, which have fed local frustration and distrust. The landfill and a dam the company is seeking to abandon have become complicated and costly mill legacies for the town to navigate.