06/09/2026
ACT BERLIN OPEN HOUSE RECAP
Androscoggin Community for Transformation | June 4, 2026
Thank you to everyone who joined us last Thursday at the Berlin Recreation Center for our open house on the proposed Dummer Yard project.
We were encouraged by the thoughtful community engagement throughout the evening. Residents asked questions, shared concerns, and participated in our community feedback boards. The responses and voting results from those boards are included in the photos attached to this post.
For those who could not attend, here is where things stand, and how you can help.
The proposal is really two projects tied together.
The first is cleaning up the old paper mill landfill, which has been leaking for years and which everyone agrees needs to be addressed. The second is building a new commercial landfill for 5 million tons of contaminated soil trucked in from off site and out of state, roughly 30 to 35 acres, operating for up to ten years, with around 60 trucks a day. The developer would pay for the cleanup with the money the new landfill collects. The two come as a package. You do not get the cleanup without also approving a decade of out off site and out of state contaminated soil.
“No cost to the City” leaves out the real costs.
There is no invoice the City pays, but no line item is not the same as no cost. The real costs fall on our health, our water, our roads (roughly 15,000 truck trips a year), our property values, and Berlin’s reputation as a place known for taking other states’ contaminated soil. The roughly one million dollars a year in tipping fees is modest, and the back taxes would be paid by any owner who put the land back into use.
A key study is still missing.
The groundwater analysis for the new landfill has not been filed, even though the plan involves blasting bedrock below the water table near homes that depend on private wells. The public deserves to see that analysis, with a public hearing, before any approval. Meanwhile, the Legislature just passed House Bill 707, which pauses new landfill approvals until at least July 2027. It pauses the landfill, not the cleanup.
ACT’s position is straightforward.
We support cleaning up Dummer Yard. We oppose turning it into a destination for off site and out of state contaminated soil. There are real, credible ways to remediate this site using federal cleanup money and to reuse clean land for solar, trails, and housing. The choice was never this landfill or nothing.
Here is what ACT is asking of you:
1. Sign the petition: https://www.change.org/p/remediate-not-reopen-dummer-yard
2. Join the ACT email list, so we can tell you when the DES public comment period opens and when the DES public meetings will happen.
3. When that comment period opens, send the State a comment. A few honest sentences from a Berlin resident carry real weight.
4. Come to the Planning Board and the City Council. Ask our leaders, respectfully and directly, what has been done to pursue federal cleanup money, and to explore solar, trails, and housing on a clean site without a new contaminated soil landfill.
5. Talk with your neighbors. Many residents have already signed our petition asking that the Council and Planning Board reject this contaminated soil facility and pursue remediation. This is not a fringe concern. It is a community asking for more.
Together we can make sure Berlin’s voice is heard.
To join the ACT Berlin email list, email [email protected] and ask to be added.
If you would like a copy of the full transcript from the evening’s presentation and discussion, please email us and we would be happy to share it.
[Board content has been digitized for readability while preserving the original responses and voting results.]
