The town of Orrington is now a partial owner of a shuttered trash incinerator, but no one involved will say who is behind the new majority owner trying to restart it.
A Florida company that bought the plant in November but failed to restart it sold 80 percent of its stake to Orrington and the new majority owner, Eagle Point Energy Center LLC, on March 1. Orrington’s Board of Selectmen approved the town entering into an agreement with Eagle Point Energy Center after an executive session Feb. 26.
But the question of who owns Eagle Point Energy Center remains unanswered. Orrington Town Manager Chris Backman would only mention one person he’s worked with, who deferred questions about the company to Backman and a spokesperson. The spokesperson declined to say who owns the company.
The mystery is the latest wrinkle in a drawn-out process to find a solution to the region’s waste problems.
Last summer, the plant, formerly called Penobscot Energy Recovery Co., stopped accepting trash from the 44 communities it served when it foreclosed, leading them to send their waste to Juniper Ridge landfill in Old Town. Florida-based C&M Faith Holdings bought the plant in November for $1.2 million in the third auction held to try selling it.
The town converted back taxes and other money spent on the plant into a five-year mortgage worth roughly $2 million, which Eagle Point Energy Center must pay the town for, Backman said.
The company made its first mortgage payment Tuesday, a couple months ahead of schedule, Backman said.
Penobscot County commissioners gave $650,000 of federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act to Orrington to help pay for a trash baler, which Orrington will own for 15 years. Around 8,000 tons of trash need to be removed before repairs can start at the trash plant. The $950,000 baler will compact the waste, which is a health hazard when it’s just sitting on the floor.
During the commissioners’ March 11 meeting when they approved allocating the federal funds, Backman and Evan Coleman spoke on behalf of the company. Coleman introduced himself as part of Eagle Point Energy Center, but his role is unclear, and he’s not listed in the incorporation filing for the company.
“[Eagle Point Energy Center] is made up of local developers, invested in the long-term success of the facility,” company spokesperson Dan Cashman said. He denied a request for an interview with Coleman.
Backman said he’s working with Roy Donnelly, who he said is with the company. Donnelly is an associate broker with The Boulos Co., a commercial real estate firm in Portland. Donnelly declined to answer questions when reached by phone Wednesday, deferring to Backman and Cashman.
Donnelly said he wants “to make sure he’s doing everything right by all involved.”
Coleman has a history of attempted developments in Maine through various companies, mostly registered in Camden. He was a representative for a subsidiary of Energy Management Inc., which proposed building a combined heat and power plant in Rockland in early 2015.
The city passed a six-month moratorium on energy plants in early 2016, killing the proposed development.
Coleman is also the manager for Northern Farms LLC, according to the incorporation. The company proposed a $10 million strawberry greenhouse project in Madison in 2017. The project received a $310,000 grant, but the greenhouses were not built.
Northern Farms also proposed building strawberry greenhouses in Niagara County, New York, in 2023. Coleman told Buffalo News that his Northern Ventures Fund has developed more than $1 billion in multiple facilities on the East Coast, including a battery storage plant.
The incinerator is a high priority for Orrington because the electricity it generates would go to other tenants in the Eagle Point Business Park for about 30 percent of market rate, serving as a draw for other new companies, Backman said.
“The town basically said to me do whatever you need to do to get the town into the right hands to generate electricity,” Backman said.
Around 20 people are currently employed at the Orrington plant, Cashman said. Once repairs are completed, the plan is to return the incinerator to full capacity, but he did not have an estimate of how many people would be employed. The final headcount is “a function of the equipment installed, among other factors.”
A comprehensive update on the status of the plant will be available around April 15, Cashman said.
“I’m glad with how it’s going,” Backman said. “More has happened in four to six weeks than has happened since August, September.”
The 40-acre facility located off River Road, also known as Route 15, burned trash to make electricity, and the facility burned 315,000 tons of trash in 2017, its last year of full operations.