The Juniper Ridge Landfill looms over the Penobscot River watershed in Old Town, Maine – a sacred waterway the Penobscot Nation has stewarded for generations. Photo: Ecophotography.
October 20, 2026 (Portland, ME) – A Penobscot County Superior Court judge has sided with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), allowing the proposed expansion of the Juniper Ridge Landfill to keep moving forward. The decision leaves DEP’s approval in place.
“This ruling is a setback, but it can’t bury the truth that the Penobscot Nation and local residents have brought into the open – that this landfill is part of a broken system that puts polluters’ wallets over people’s health,” said Alex St. Pierre, vice president for environmental justice at CLF. “The knowledge, persistence, and power of these communities have already shifted the conversation – and that momentum will carry forward until justice is served.”
The proposed expansion would add roughly 11.9 million cubic yards of capacity to Juniper Ridge, enough to hold the equivalent of 8.6 Empire State Buildings worth of trash. The state-owned landfill, operated by Casella Waste Systems, has long raised concerns about PFAS contamination, air pollution, and the growing burden of waste pollution on the Penobscot Nation and other communities along the Penobscot River.
DEP relied on PFAS treatment as an important safeguard in approving the proposed expansion. Casella has now confirmed plans to move that treatment system to another landfill, located 20 miles away, and seek approval through a separate permitting process. That change raises further questions about how and when PFAS-contaminated wastewater will be treated.
“We have fought pollution, injustice, and decades of harm to heal the Penobscot River, a relative that has sustained our people since time immemorial and continues to sustain communities across Maine,” said Kirk E. Francis, Penobscot Nation Tribal Chief. “We are not asking the state to undo generations of harm overnight. We are asking it not to take us backward. Our cultural survival is tied to the health of the Penobscot River, and there is too much at stake to keep adding to the harms it already carries.”
The state gave the expansion a second green light in March 2026 after an earlier court ruling ordered DEP to fully consider the combined toll of pollution and other burdens on the Penobscot Nation and communities along the Penobscot River. In its revised decision, DEP acknowledged many of those existing harms but still concluded that the expansion could move forward. The Penobscot Nation and Conservation Law Foundation returned to court, arguing that DEP once again failed to fully account for those harms as the court ordered.
CLF and the Penobscot Nation are reviewing the ruling and evaluating next steps.
Experts are available for further comment.
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