BANGOR DAILY NEWS • December 13, 2024
The town of Warren has applied again for federal funding to clean up a large pile of toxic carpet waste on the side of Route 90, after it was denied an earlier request for $2 million to pay for the work. This time, the town is seeking double that amount. The 300,000 cubic yards of carpet have littered a local property since the late 1990s, when Chester Randall Dunican and his wife, Kathleen, began dumping the material there after claiming it could serve as berms for a proposed rifle range. Much of the highly flammable carpet remains there, steadily leaking PFAS into the topsoil. It would be enough material to fill 90 Olympic-sized swimming pools.