University Nuclear Waste Dump | Greenbush

When I was a kid my best friend and his older brother insisted there was a veritable junkyard full of army surplus vehicles in the woods somewhere in the outer rim known as the Cards Ridge Road. This piqued my interest even then, and a mysterious chain link fence in the woods just outside of our ability to perceive it through the trees seemed to lend legitimacy to the story. 

What lies somewhere under this old tree nursery?

What I found wasn't a rusty remnants of Reagan era relics rotting in repose out in the woods, but rather another type of Cold War era artifact. 

Eighteen years worth of radioactive waste and laboratory chemicals (including the nuclear weapons ignition component tritium), buried in secret by the University of Maine in what was at the time a tree nursery. Eighteen years worth of radioactive waste and laboratory chemicals dumped without the consent of those living nearby. It took the University of Maine twenty two years to even test the site and they only agreed to continue doing so because of the 'psychological impact' of their deceit.

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection removed a lot of the mystery for me. Their KMZ file for Google Earth robbed me of the thrill of peering through the woods and seeing an empty, fenced in plot in the middle of the woods just to the north of the tree nursery site. The state classifies the site as this --

APPROX. 200 GALLONS OF TOLUENE MIXED W/LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES WERE BURIED AT THIS SITE IN 5-GALLON METAL CANS.RADIOACTIVE WASTES CONSIST PRIMARILY OF HYDROGEN AND CARBON ISOTOPES IN AMOUNTS OF 22-80 MILLICURIES. SITE 40'X40'.

From the thirteen years of newspaper articles I've found, the 'radioactive wastes' were reported by locals to be anything from 'experimental animals' (whatever that means) to low level isotopes. The Old Town-Orono Times also reported the presence of tritium - which was used in early nuclear weapons as an ignition agent.

That being said, here is all of the information I've been able to gather on this site: 

• 7/24/1980 - Letter to the editor: Everything To Lose (BDN) - Here is a letter form an upset resident of a neighboring town. The letter describes the dump as 'like a small 50x50 foot burial plot with yearly markers going back to the 1960s and "said to consist" of remains of "experimental animals" and "low level isotopes." The letter reveals that the dump was administered by Professor Gordon Ramsdell and gives us a clue as to its physical location: "high on a hill 150' from Spring Bridge Road" and "a quarter mile uphill from" their "familys spring" - which may be an error since the dump is allegedly located on the site of the old State Tree Nursery and Spring Bridge turns to Goulds Ridge north of East Ridge. While interesting I take the letter with a grain of salt as it ends with a reference to Revelation 12:12....although considering Gordon Ramsdell's expertise is apparently food science I'm not sure what to believe with this one...
• 7/24/1980 - Atlantic is Radioactive Waste Dump; effects unclear (Lewiston Daily Sun), while the majority of the content in this article relates to larger scale nuclear waste, the author acknowledges that lower level waste is buried -- singling out the Greenbush site among greater national concerns.
• 12/15/1982 - No Cover Yet for Nuclear Waste Site in Greenbush (Old Town-Orono Times) - The state had realized they needed to install test wells (22 years after the university had begun to dump there) but had yet to actually cover the burial area with something other than water-permeable earth. The article reveals that there are four wells surrounding the site as well as a number of wells about a half mile away from the site. 
• 7/6/1983 - Cover Installed over Low Level Nuclear Waste Site (Old Town-Orono Times) - A heavy polyethelene cover and several feet of dirt were placed over the waste barrels to prevent the containment from degrading. 
• 3/11/1987 - Greenbush Meeting on Radioactive Dump Site (Old Town-Orono Times) - Is an article about plans for a potential new dump site, but pays lip service to the fact that Greenbush was the "unwitting host" of UMO's radioactive landfill. 
• 3/11/1987 - University Agrees to Monitor Greenbush Landfill Site (Old Town-Orono Times)- The article reveals that Carbon 14 and tritium were dumped at the site. Also reveals that the university only agreed to monitor the site going forward because of the 'psychological impact' on the town. 
• 8/10/1990 - Radioactive Waste Panel to Meet (BDN) - In which a group of folks from Augusta make the trek up to Greenbush to visit the site. This article gives the dates of usage for the site as a dump as 1960-1978. The article also reveals that the university never officially 'closed' the site until by legislative order in the early 1990s. It was still uncertain at this point whether or not the university was going to remove the waste or leave it there. 
• 12/30/1992 - Dumps Dominate Greenbush Discussion (BDN) - This article gives us some idea of the physical attributes and contents of the low level nuclear waste dump. Most interesting perhaps is the disclosure of the dimensions of the dump as 40'x40' and the presence of four above ground test wells as well as description of its contents of 'laboratory chemicals' and 'radioactive waste.' 
• 12/30/1992 - Greenbush to Discuss Waste Sites (BDN) - gives us another interesting tidbit in that it reveals the waste is still present to this day as it was declared too dangerous to remove. 
• 10/05/1993 - Greenbush Grants Tax Abatements Because of Computer Errors on Bills may seem like your average story of a backwater town struggling to adapt to the digital age. However it provides one key detail: the material is still present. The article explains that the state tree nursery was sold in 1993 but that the state retained possession of the parcel under which the dump lies. (I tried to determine its location via tax maps, but being such a small town no such information is on the internet.) The story characterizes the dumps contents as "hazardous and radioactive waste." 

In short, at least the University of Maine did the least they could do - only after public outcry. 

Kingman - Township 6, Sister of Township 39

Tucked away in a corner of Penobscot county is an almost-ghost town which was for the most part destroyed in an explosion nearly identical to the theorized fire which destroyed Township 39. While there are several houses remaining all which remains of Kingman's heyday is a 120 year old rectory and the railroad which runs through it. The town -- not the rectory. 

In a sense this is a town that has disappeared from history over and over again. It was first organized as McCrillis Plantation in 1859, Independence Plantation in 1866 (after briefly being named the 429th town) and Kingman less than a decade later in 1874; it persisted for 72 years until dissolving in 1945. It has been unorganized since. 

While researching for this piece the name F Shaw piqued my interest early on. F Shaw was one of the tannery barons who ran the company town of Township 39 (if you aren't familiar with Township 39 you should probably click the link in the first paragraph before continuing. In other words spoiler warning) He was also the owner of the large tannery operating in Kingman. Township 39 was the victim of a fire in 1906 which, while not killing all of the inhabitants destroyed the economic engine of the settlement resulting in it becoming completely abandoned. A decade and a half later the town of Kingman would suffer a fire (starting at the tannery) which destroyed most homes, including the ornate Romanzo Kingman House.  Either this man had astonishingly bad luck or a fantastic insurance agent. 

The town had a population of almost 1,000 in 1900, which had reduced by over 50% due to the effects of the Great Depression and F Shaw Tannery Fire. Even during WWII there were 48 structures on main street and the block created by cross street. There are around 30 now.

A book called Modern Maine published in 1953 describes the town's economic engine as mostly lumbering/pulpwood cutting and potato farming. Aside from demography, interesting points include the fact that they apparently had to sue Penobscot County commissioners to get permission to build a road to their nearest neighbor. It managed to get its own telephone company in 1913. This was creatively named the Kingman Telephone Company. The Maine Encyclopedia has a fantastic article with a solid narrative. 

The only structure I can verify which has seen all of this is the rectory on cross street. I have a minor personal connection to this structure as I spent quite a bit of time inside it around the early 2000's. Unfortunately, this was before the advent of smartphones and I don't have any images which showcase interesting features which I recall. 

Features which include a maid staircase leading from the kitchen to a small bed room at the end of the hall. A dumbwaiter was also present however had fallen into the depths of disrepair by the time I was dating the daughter of a former owner. This house was featured on the blog Old House Dreams and hadn't changed much between the early 2000's and when the house was last sold in 2014.

You can tell this building is from another time compared to the surrounding houses due to the above features saved only in my own memory as well as the photos from the Old House Dreams blog. 

Items which stand out are the newel post, the french doors in the sitting room and the pretty delicate work around the windows. As a teenager I didn't really appreciate the features or understand that I was inside a time bubble which had seen its town's population dwindle to under 10% of the build year's population. 

US Navy SERE School | Redington Twp

While this site is still in operation, I'm filing it under 'lost' as its curriculum is classified and the Navy doesn't answer questions about training volumes or whether or not they have a simulated prison camp (that's probably not a string of christmas lights in the right side of the photo to the left.)

For as long as there have been things that some do not wish for others to see, there will be speculation. The varied and often desolate landscape of the state of Maine occasionally adds some extra juice to help sweeten the truth. For example, 'the Octagon' up in Caswell is not a top secret learn to kill with your bare hands type of facility; its proximity to ex Loring AFB does not turn the training activities of the Maine National Guard into adventures of Sterling Archer (or John Steed, depending on your age.)

This piece in The Bollard brought the Redington SERE school to my attention, and if you've got some patience it contains some neat information but ultimately tries to suggest that the school is linked to a disappearing hiker (which reminds me of when I thought some camps in Springfield were what was left of the Cushman's ridge settlement.) As this site is restricted access, unfortunately I will have no firsthand photographs for you, only some newspaper articles and links.

But first, what does the SERE school do? This post on WeAreMighty sums up what we're apparently allowed to know about the curriculum. Airmen were taught survival skills, and then rounded up by 'enemy' troops, blindfolded, tortured and interrogated. Activities ranged anywhere from being locked in a cell with Rudyard Kipling's 'boots' on repeat to being restrained and having pipe tobacco blown up your nose, which sounds quite a lot like waterboarding but toxic as it was described as a pattern of  choking, passing out and puking. Fortunately for the Navy they've only broken someone's back doing this and nobody has been Jimi Hendrix'd. Other descriptions include forced labor, being stripped naked in the winter and being made to standby whilst your clothes burn, and a bizarre declaration of atheism by the imaginary enemy.

The camp commander gathered us together and, holding a Bible aloft, told us our beliefs were bullshit and that the only religious figure Americans truly worshiped was St. Walt Disney.

That last bit was something that the Bollard missed, since it's impossible that the US Navy has never heard of Pavlov, the association of atheism with the enemy would have made both Joseph McCarthy (and maybe Pope Urban II) proud.

Note that whatever objection I have to vilifying Americans due to non belief (or belief) doesn't mean that the site captures poor lost hikers....

Back to the news!

• 1976 | Navy Has Torture Camp | Bangor Daily News : This story mentions a 'torture' camp of 4,000 acres proximate to popular skiing locations. First murmurings mentioned were related to plow truck operators paid by the navy to keep the facilities' roads clear in the winter. Story verified when a 19 year old frogman escaped and stumbled onto a hippie commune telling tales of torture and abuse, including guards dressed as Chinese communists speaking with phony accents (I imagine much like Buddy Hackett) who would blow smoke up his nose, waterboard them and lock them in sweatboxes. Story mentions the Navy denying 'sexual abuse' (like they denied the existence of a fenced area when asked by The Bollard) and verifying that the exercises occurred.
• 1976 | Senator asks for Report on Redington Camp | Bangor Daily News: tl;dr - the Navy broke someone's back while doing their Buddy Hackett meets Falling Down schtick and it caught the attention of someone in DC. 
• 1984 | For Survival School, Navy to Buy 10,000 Acres | Lewiston Daily Sun - Purchased acres from Georgia Pacific for $2.1m, was previously only leasing 3,000 acres near Rangeley. Of interest, the story mentions that the Navy hosts two survival programs here: winter and Survival/Evasion/Resistance (torture)/Escape. The story mentions that the border of the area is identified by granite markers. 
• 1989 | Students Undergo Survival Training | Sun Journal: Rangeley middle school students took a field trip to learn some basic survival skills. They left presumably un-waterboarded. 
• 1990 | Cruise Missile Launched Over Maine | Bangor Daily News: Despite a vote to halt this sort of thing, the Navy thumbed its nose at the people of Maine and did so anyway. The cruise missile, contents unknown, was launched from the coast with its target being the SERE school. The objective of the exercise was apparently to recover the contents of the missile. 
• 1993 | War With Iraq | Sun Journal : A rather informative article detailing all military installations present in Maine during the Gulf War era. 

USS Kasimar | The Alpha Quadrant

One could easily start this one off like some kind of guessing game...

This one's not quite like the other ones you see in the list to the right, despite being lost and very neat. It's not a building, it's not a place. It's not even "real" in the sense that the Loring WSA or a gyppo logging setup are real. It's instantly recognizable to people from Fort Kent to Kittery to all the way to Amman, Jordan. This was an object that represented a future where we all managed to get over the petty stercus tauri that separates us from each other as humans.

What is it? A replica of the bridge of the USS Enterprise. No CV, No CVN, no bloody A, B, C or D.

In 1984, Bangor resident John Supranovich sent $10 to the Star Trek fanclub based in Oregon and started one of the largest Star Trek fan clubs in the nation. The Kasimar had gone from having 30 members in 1984 to near 300 by the time the show's 25th anniversary rolled around in 1991. A burgeoning membership isn't the most important part of this story, though. Like Chester Greenwood and his dead beaver ear coverings, and Percy Spencer's radioactive chocolate bar melting machine (the microwave) this is a case of Mainers finding something they need, or in this case something they love, and building stuff.

Here are some photos, and there are virtual newspaper clippings after the jump courtesy of Google Newspapers.

This article from 1990 gives us some truly impressive background information on the Kasimar bridge. Funding for the project was donated by "Bangor Daily News charities and other donors" and labor was done by students from a phantom high school named Penobscot Regional (which either doesn't exist or is mis-named in the article) as a class project in 1984. In addition to having a full size mockup of the bridge (as if that wasn't cool enough) they also did work for the Children's Miracle Network, Ronald McDonald house and visited sick kids while in uniform.








http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=19900709&id=lQFgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Mw4NAAAAIBAJ&pg=6403,2147213

10.23.92 - Kasmiar broughtr bridge to central maine egg festival, which of course had a star trek theme.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=19921023&id=IalJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=RQ4NAAAAIBAJ&pg=1680,2426811

1.27.84 - NCC1784 registry number given. 30 member crew. Capt Supranovich. XO Gerry Palmer. Largest fan club east of mississippi

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=19840127&id=eyg0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=CeEIAAAAIBAJ&pg=3751,4403578

1991 - big convention. 130 members noted here.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=19910816&id=hK1JAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mg4NAAAAIBAJ&pg=5228,179470

[Roadside Relic] MEC Engine 470 | Waterville

(Link to the high res image gallery is at the bottom.) 

I'm a sucker for the weather beaten and disused. Even better if it looks like something that Tim Burton would doodle out of a steampunk nightmare. Here is an item that you're going to have to see soon if you'd like to see it in its current state, because its days are numbered. The last passenger steam train out of Bangor: MEC #470. A steam engine that serviced customers between Bangor and Boston from 1924-1954. What makes this machine remarkable within the context of the general state of the way things now are in Maine is that it was used exclusively for passenger rail service. No potatoes and no pulpwood. Also remarkable is the fact hat this was the last passenger train to depart from Bangor. 470 was given to the city of Waterville as a gift in 1962, by Maine Central Railroad which was celebrating its 100th anniversary. In 1970 it was moved to its current location where it now sits behind a fence in a park in Waterville.

Go see it now, in its charming rusted and weathered state before it goes away. Fortunately, this is going 'away' is more akin to being whisked away for a makeover. The New England Steam Corporation plans to get this 127 ton behemoth up and running again. Here's their Indiegogo pitch! They've come a long way since being set back by the city of Waterville due to asbestos concerns.


While it'll certainly be great to see this thing actually move under its own power, a little bit of melancholy comes with its potential removal. As a kid, I used to climb all over this thing. If there was a place to stand and something to hold on to I was there. This stopped when I got into the coal car and my sneakers couldn't provide adequate traction to get out, so naturally through child logic I concluded that my parents were just going to leave me there. This is why I didn't visit this machine between 1995 and 2015, I suppose.

Since it was first placed in its park in late 1970 it has been more or less deteriorating, and due to safety concerns it should be recognized that the fence currently in place around the site is for the benefit of the machine's new owners, and for the benefit of the proudly tetanus-free. It's new owners, The New England Steam Corporation, have some pretty graphic photos of the carnage wrought by Maine weather on their Facebook page.

I visited "old 470" on an overcast day in May. I didn't get many good shots because my choices were either shooting blind or trying to shoot through a fence. Here's the full res collection, and here are some of the nicer shots for your casual perusal.

 

These are only a few of the photos I took. The rest of the collection is here, and in full resolution.

Resources:

• Engine 470 on WikiPedia
• 4-6-2 Class information on WikiPedia
• New England Steam Corporation on Facebook
• New England Steam Corporation's website
• New England Steam Corporation's YouTube channel. (some seriously neat stuff here.)

Mystery '59 Ford Fairlane 500 | Strong

WARNING: THIS POST IS IMAGE HEAVY. IT MAY TAKE A MOMENT TO LOAD.

I spotted a sad 1959 Ford Fairlane 500 in the cold Maine rain.

Nothing historic here, just a feeling. 

This is what it would have used to look like:

Wikimedia Commons

...that's about it. Here are a few larger images.

[Roadside Relic] M60 Patton | Lincoln

WARNING: PHOTO HEAVY POST. MAY TAKE A MOMENT TO LOAD. 

Pardon my gimmick, but I think Summer 2015 will be my summer of Roadside Relics. New suspension and a new steering rack has a way of inspiring one to drive. And as you're driving into Lincoln via US 2 North, you may have to double take at what is parked behind the retirement home. A twenty two foot long Chrysler that gets one mile to the gallon and has a power to weight ratio of 15hp to the ton. While a giant Chrysler with such fuel consumption isn't all that unusual around here, this particular Chrysler is an iconic and ubiquitous vehicle that rolled off of an assembly line in Detroit in the 60s known as the M-60 "Patton." America's main battle tank during the Cold War period. Interestingly enough, Chrysler and Uncle Sam have had a very long love affair.

 
Wikipedia can tell you everything you want to know about this vehicle and more. Since this is a part of my "Roadside Relics" collection, I must inform you that this object is not at a park, and there isn't really a place for you to park unless you decide to get yourself a fantastic deal at Marden's! Signage indicates the lot is intended for their customers. If you don't like great deals, I'd recommend parking across the street (near the gazebo.)

Here are the remainder of the photographs of the tank.

Above you can see one of the differences between the M60 and its predecessor. The M-48 had a rounded hull while the M-60 has a beveled hull. I'm going to guess that this is because the armor would seem to be less likely to take as much damage if hit from an angle as opposed to head on. This design element reminds me of the Tiger II and its similarly angled armor.

While it's not in a park, I found I was able to get out of the car and walk around this without anyone giving me any trouble. Another difference that you can spot is that the M48 had five support struts to a side, compared to the M60's three. I couldn't find a tailpipe but I did find a heatsink. These 'blades' are to increase the surface area available for cooling. You have this exact same principle working inside of your computer right now. This gigantic 750 hp V12 may be air cooled.