Dust Control – Soil Stabilization – Erosion Control

Archive for the ‘landfill closure’ Category

EUGENE, Ore.–  Federal law requires Lane County to put a cap on the landfill when it’s full.  But that’s not expected to be until 2087.

But, to reduce methane gas, the county is putting a cap on one portion of the landfill now.

A 16-acre parcel, filled with more than a million and a half tons of garbage, will be covered with a foot and a half layer of clay, followed by a thick plastic covering.

The project costs two million dollars, all of which is paid for by fees Lane County collected from solid waste disposal.

They should have called SCI and capped it for much less.

No different from many small towns in rural America, Powell has been slow to jump on the recycling bandwagon.
But with the closure of the local landfill on the horizon, it’s time for the city — possibly in partnership with Park County — to look at ways to further encourage reduction of solid waste. It’s now a financial issue as well as an environmental one.

While some large urban centers have had city-run curbside recycling programs in place since the late 1980s — now, nearly two decades later, residents of Powell are realizing the importance of reducing waste. As proof of that, the local recycling center is moving to a larger building to better handle the volume of recyclables coming in, and two enterprising women have started a curbside pick-up service to make it easier for homeowners and businesses to recycle. But we’re still lagging behind: One need only look at trash cans, full of aluminum cans and plastic and glass bottles, in public places throughout town for evidence.

Designated containers for recyclables on downtown streets and in other community gathering places is a start.

Additionally, the Environmental Protection Agency has a program in place to help municipalities implement pay-as-you-throw systems for solid waste. According to the EPA Web site, those systems charge residents based on their trash volume, creating an incentive to throw away less and recycle more. The EPA says, on average, communities with pay-as-you-throw programs see waste reductions of 15 to 28 percent. That’s just one of many options.

Within our community, the possibilities to reduce waste extend beyond materials accepted at recycling centers.

Residents soon will be able to donate salvaged building materials to a new Habitat for Humanity ReStore, and, with the proper tools in place, grass clippings and tree branches could be reused as mulch in landscaping applications throughout the community.

While a city-wide change may be slow to take effect — and a significant cash outlay may be necessary — there’s no time like the present to begin exploring options. With rising landfill rates looming, any investment would be money well spent. And doing our part to help the environment has its own rewards as well. 

The resolution allows the borough to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the company as well as with Birdsall Services Group, which was designated as prospective remediator of the landfill.

Mayor Patricia Koloski had only praise for the companies, saying "they were the best we looked at."

"This is a company that I think is really good at what they do," Koloski said of Westfield. "Their resume is really above and beyond."

The two companies were chosen out of a batch of proposals submitted earlier this summer. They had actually submitted individual proposals, according to Borough Administrator Victoria Holmstrom.

"Westfield had the redevelopment strength, and Birdsall are experts on environmental issues, especially landfill closure," Holmstrom said. "So we asked the two to work together and they became a team."

Located on the edge of the borough and bordered by Grove Road and Woodlawn Avenue, the landfill was closed in the mid-1970s after years of being used for the disposal of demolition material and local household waste.

Previous proposals for the property had included converting the landfill into a sprawling recreational complex and then redeveloping the site of the borough’s current ball fields, which sit in the center of town.

Land Resource Solutions LLC completed an environmental investigation of the site, analyzing what contaminants, if any, are present. The company was interested in staying on to create a redevelopment plan for the landfill, but the borough elected instead to allow its contract to expire, opening the door for more developers to submit proposals.

NATIONAL PARK The long-defunct Robert Hawthorne Sanitary Landfill could eventually house a 30-acre field of solar panels, as well as over 130,000 square feet of office and retail space fronted along Grove Road, according to a proposal submitted by Westfield Energy.

The borough council recently passed a resolution designating Westfield Energy as prospective redeveloper of the closed landfill, the only undeveloped tract of land in the one-square-mile borough.

2 Next

Residents who take their garbage to the dump have a more efficient place to drop it off and reduce the amount going to the landfill.

A new solid waste and recycling facility on Mapleward Road opens today, and features easier access to sorting stations. The new site replaces the John Street location, which officially closed Monday night.

The new site includes paved roads to expanded collection stations, improved signage, a new weigh scale and a new administration centre. The operation is designed to make reducing landfill waste easier than in the past and decrease the amount of hazardous waste and recyclable material buried in the ground.

Once traffic enters the site, vehicles are split into two streams – private and registered commercial.

The private customer – residents dumping their own garbage – drive through the recycling and hazardous waste stations before being weighed at the kiosk. The next stop is the public waste disposal area where they can sort their metals, bulky items, soil or clean fill, clean wood and garbage into large bins. All loads have to be sorted before leaving home to make disposal easier, said landfill supervisor Rick Latta. Vehicles from cars to half-ton trucks can use the private disposal area.

“This makes utilizing the recycling and sorting of household garbage a lot easier because private vehicles won‘t have to drive up the dump face and they only pay upon exiting,” said Latta.

He added that if a private vehicle too big to drive through the scale shows up, staff will let the driver know and help them move their material to the appropriate bins.

Commercial vehicles drive through automated scales and are billed on the way out. Latta said this will improve traffic flow in and out of the site.

“At the John Street location, we had a lot of problems with traffic jams and people waiting in line on the road,” Latta said. “We could get 1,500 cars a day.

“The other problem was vehicles pulling over to drop off recyclables then losing their spot in line for the scales. Here we have a collector loop for overflow so no one has to sit at the side of the road anymore.”

He also pointed to the improved hazardous waste disposal area. There is a shed with padded floors to eliminate the dangers of leaking materials. Residents can get rid of paint, fluorescent bulbs, household cleaners and some computers and electronics. Radios and portable stereos aren‘t accepted.

Large appliances like refrigerators have to be freon-free before they can be accepted.
Construction continues at the site to finish up some details.
Meanwhile, the city has to decide what to do with the John Street site.
“We are still going to use the site for cold storage and come back at a later date to figure out what to do with the site,” said Pat Mauro, manager of the city‘s engineering department.
The landfill itself remains. Mauro said the site is moving eastward and he estimated it had a 200-year lifespan. The city has approval from the province to use it until 2025.
Rotting garbageto be turned into power

The City of Thunder Bay is hoping to produce something good from rotting garbage.
The city and Thunder Bay Hydro Renewable Power, a subsidiary of Thunder Bay Hydro, is working on a plan to turn methane gas from the city dump into green energy.
The city has to burn methane gas generated by decomposing garbage, said Pat Mauro, manager of the city‘s engineering department.

He said 85 wells will be drilled into the garbage area and piping will be fed through the landfill site. The network of pipes will collect methane gas and feed it into two generators, which will burn it to produce electricity.

“The city has to burn off the gas according to environmental standards,” Mauro said. “So we are entering into a partnership with Thunder Bay Hydro to manage these generators. They can generate electricity from the landfill and we sell it back to Ontario Power Generation and feed it into the existing grid.”

The generators will produce 3.2 megawatts of power annually, said Robert Mace, president of Thunder Bay Hydro.

“That would be enough energy to power 2,000 homes for one year,” Mace said.

GREENVILLE, Maine — Town officials are hoping the Department of Environmental Protection will allow the town to do a phased-in multiyear closure plan for the landfill that differs from the department’s schedule of compliance.

The DEP has requested the town formally submit a closing plan by Oct. 1, and begin the work by spring 2010. The town, on the other hand, hopes to get permission to close the grandfathered landfill in phases from 2010 to 2014, according to Town Manager John Simko.

Because the landfill is contaminating groundwater, the DEP in 2006 told the town it must file a closing plan in three years, but did leave the town a little wiggle room. If the town could show improvement in the groundwater quality within those three years, the DEP said it would entertain the continued use of the facility, which has a life span of at least 20 more years. But DEP officials also encouraged the town to put its resources toward closing the landfill and development of a transfer station.

The town and town’s engineer, Shawn Small of Civil Engineering Services Inc. of Brewer, thought it best to work on corrective actions for continued use of the facility, but those measures have failed to change the results. While the groundwater meets Maine clean drinking water parameters, it is not acceptable under the DEP’s landfill regulations.

A phased-in proposal recommended by the town would allow the town to use cover material from the landfill, use its own personnel and equipment, and budget the costs over time for less of an impact on property tax payers. If the town’s proposal is approved, the closing costs are estimated at $500,000, Simko said.

The DEP is expected to act on the town’s request within the next few weeks.

Simko said efforts also are being made to have the town in line for state reimbursement for the landfill costs should any funds become available in the future. He said Rep. Pete Johnson, R-Greenville, intends to submit emergency legislation later this month to amend the reimbursement law.

If passed, Greenville, Presque Isle, Brewer and West Forks, which built or expanded landfills before the law change that prohibited them, would be eligible for any future landfill closing funds. Greenville would be eligible for between 75 percent to 90 percent of the closing costs, Simko said.

In conjunction with the landfill work, the town is moving forward with plans for a transfer station. To help municipal officials decide what avenue to take, residents are asked to attend a public hearing at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16, in the municipal building. Simko said residents can comment on what they like and dislike about the solid waste program. That discussion would include days and hours of operation, curbside pick-up, as well as fees.

dianabdn@myfairpoint.net

In yet another controversial development in the case of the Tennessee coal ash spill, the millions of pounds of ash are being shipped from the accident site to a landfill in a poor county in Alabama.

The Great Coal Ash Transfer
The New York Times paints a pretty evocative picture of what’s going on:

Almost every day, a train pulls into a rail yard in rural Alabama, hauling 8,500 tons of a disaster that occurred 350 miles away to a final resting place, the Arrowhead Landfill here in Perry County, which is very poor and almost 70 percent black.

Which is pretty awful at first glance–a comparatively wealthy community shipping its mess far south for a much poorer one to take care of. But as the Times points out, community leaders in Perry County actually jumped at the chance to tend to the coal ash problem, for purely economic reasons: it’s creating 30 jobs in a county that has 17% unemployment, and it’s adding $3 million to a county budget that previously had only $4.5 million.

Is the Coal Ash Containment Environmentally Sound?
And then there’s this: (from the Times)

Even environmentalists acknowledge that the site, in Perry County, is in many ways ideal. Most of the problems from coal ash, which contains toxins like arsenic and lead that have contaminated the water supply at more than 60 sites nationwide, come from wet, unlined ponds like the one that ruptured in Tennessee. It is far better, environmentalists say, that the ash should go somewhere like Arrowhead, a dry storage site dug into a nearly impermeable bed known as the Selma chalk, some 600 feet above the water table, lined with clay and polymer and equipped with a leachate collection system to suck up any water that filters through the ash and dislodges contaminants.

So it seems like a win-win situation (as much as dealing with millions of yards of toxic ash spill can be anyhow). Perry County gets an economic boost, and the ash spill gets safely tucked away.

Or Does It?
But many residents don’t see it that way, and have lingering concerns about water safety, regulations, and a lack of trust with the officials in charge of the operation. They said they "feared equipment failure, flooding, tornadoes or lack of oversight at the landfill, where the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, whose notably lax regulation of coal ash permits most landfills to use it as a cover material for other waste." And opponents of the landfill have noted that there are at least 212 homes within a mile and a half from the landfill.

“I won’t feel comfortable,” wrote W. Compson Sartain, a columnist for The Perry County Herald, “until I see a delegation from E.P.A. and T.V.A. standing on the courthouse square, each member stirring a heaping spoonful of this coal ash into a glass of Tennessee river water this stuff has already fallen into, and gargling with it.”

But it looks like Sartain won’t get his demonstration–the great coal ash transfer from Tennessee to Perry County is already well under way.