Appellate Court: FiberMark may argue for damages from DEP for delay in ... - Hunterdon County Democrat - NJ.com

HOLLAND TWP. — A lawsuit filed over a landfill once used by a now-defunct paper company has been partially reinstated and remanded back to the Hunterdon County Superior Court by the Appellate Division.

In 2008 FiberMark North America, Inc. sued the State Department of Environmental Protection because it couldn’t sell its property due to pollutants from a neighboring landfill.

FiberMark owned the Warren Glen specialty papermaking plant off of Route 519 as well as a plant on Cyphers Road off Route 627 in the Hughesville section of Holland Township. After the Warren Glen plant was closed in 2006 the company had to continue operating a wastewater treatment plant to clean pollutants that were leaching out of a neighboring landfill owned by the DEP, according to a suit filed on May 27, 2008.

The suit, filed by Joshua Denbeaux in Superior Court in Flemington, claimed the company had been financially harmed because the DEP failed to fulfill a promise to redirect the leachate from the property once owned by Crown Vantage.

According to the suit, in 2005 when Crown Vantage filed for bankruptcy that company reached an agreement with the DEP to abandon the landfill. Crown Vantage paid $1 million to remediate another landfill site and any money that was left over was to be put toward the Warren Glen landfill.

In 2006 FiberMark asked the DEP to stop the leachate from being discharged onto its property so it could finally shut the plant down.

On Jan. 8, 2007, FiberMark reached a tentative agreement with a buyer for the property but the $5 million deal was dependent upon the DEP diverting the leachate, according to the suit. The DEP said it would divert the runoff back into the landfill by Jan. 12, 2007, the suit said.

Two weeks later the DEP told FiberMark it had underestimated the quantity of leachate, so therefore could not divert it and would fine FiberMark if the company did not treat the runoff, according to the suit.

The sale fell through and FiberMark continued to pay taxes and maintain the property it couldn’t sell, the suit said. FiberMark also estimated that it was spending approximately $86,000 per month to operate the treatment lagoons according to the court opinion.

The federal district court later ordered the DEP to stop discharging leachate into the lagoons as quickly as possible and in April 2007, the DEP removed the pipe that had run from the landfill to the treatment lagoons, thus permanently cutting off the flow of leachate.

With the leachate issue resolved, negotiations resumed between FiberMark and IPPE, and in October 2007, they signed a contract for the sale of the mill but for significantly less money
.

While the appellate judges agreed with much of the trial judge’s conclusions, they said FiberMark should have been permitted to argue to the jury that the DEP acted unreasonably and took an unreasonable length of time to resolve the leachate issue. The appellate judges also agreed that FiberMark should have been allowed to seek reimbursement for the costs it incurred in continuing in operation the treatment lagoons after the plant was closed.

The appellate judges however agreed with the lower court that FiberMark can’t hold the DEP accountable for the decrease in sale price of the property since they signed the option even though they had doubts that the diversion pipe would be completed as promised.

The appellate judges disagreed with the lower court ruling regarding the nuisance caused by the continued discharge of leachate. “There is authority for the proposition that a party who did not create or contribute to a condition may be liable under principles of nuisance if it had a duty to ‘prevent or abate’” the judges wrote.

They said FiberMark “was entitled to argue that the DEP, by accepting Crown’s $1 million, and agreeing to ‘remediate any environmental condition’ on Crown’s property, accepted the duty to abate the flow of leachate,” into the lagoons.

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Clean TeQ Awarded Water Treatment Contract - Waste Management World

The Board of Clean TeQ Holdings Limited (ASX; CLQ) is pleased to announce that Clean TeQ has been awarded a contract to supply two water treatment plants for the processing of leachate and groundwater at two landfill sites. The project is due for completion in the first half of this financial year.

(Video content is not related to this article, but we hope you find it interesting.)

The contract to the value of $1.2m is for the design, supply, installation and commissioning of the two water treatment plants to reduce ammonia and adjust pH of landfill leachate and groundwater to a quality that is suitable for disposal by trade waste discharge. The removal of nutrients, such as ammonia, is an important step in the client's environmental strategy to reduce the nutrient load from these landfill sites.

Clean TeQ has an extensive suite of water treatment technologies that reduce many of the common pollutants such as ammonia, nitrate, salts, heavy metals and hydrocarbons that are found in leachates and groundwater.

"We are pleased to be working with a leading environmental services company in the provision of technology that provides a better overall outcome for our environment. This contract builds on our current project pipeline for the 2011/12 financial year," said Peter Voigt, Chief Executive Officer of Clean TeQ.

Source: Australian Securities Exchange

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Landia : Aeration Solutions for Composting-Leachate - Water and Wastewater

Whitchurch, Shropshire, UK -- Leading mixer and pump manufacturer Landia have reported a significant increase in the number of companies now installing aeration equipment to deal with the problems caused by composting-leachate.
In addition to the obvious proven benefit of reducing foul odors, Landia's mixers are also now being specified in order to steadily and evenly introduce oxygen, maintain humidity and greatly speed up the active biology of the leachate so that it can be re-used for irrigation of wind rows. If the option to irrigate is not taken up, there is also a strong possibility that sewage discharge costs will be reduced because the aerators help decrease the amount of pollutants in the water.

(Arerator shown is not a Landia model, as no Landia videos were available.)

"Until recently, the benefits of aerating composting-leachate have largely been overlooked", said Landia UK & Eire's Agricultural Manager, Paul Davies,?but in Ireland, for example, we have installed several of our mixers at a large composting facility, where in addition to the process benefits and odor reduction, the need to turn compost has almost been eliminated and overall capacity has been increased. For many, it?s now proving to be a false economy not to have a mixing/aeration system?.

Source: http://www.landia.co.uk/

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Urali villagers threaten to ban dumping of garbage - Times of India

Urali villagers threaten to ban dumping of garbage - Times Of India You are here: Home>CollectionsUrali villagers threaten to ban dumping of garbageUmesh Isalkar, TNN Aug 5, 2011, 11.15pm IST

PUNE: The overflowing leachate at the garbage depot and the failure of the civic body to make arrangements for its treatment became heated issues during the review meeting on development works of Phursungi-Urali on Friday.

The villagers threatened that they would not allow garbage containers to enter the village and declared that the final decision on this will be taken after a meeting with civic officials on August 11.

"The PMC is not serious about proper management of garbage at the landfill site. Setting up a leachate treatment plant has been a long-pending requirement of the depot but the PMC could not fulfil this simple requirement. Garbage segregation, which is an integral part of waste management, has also been thrown to wind by the PMC officials. Why should we bear the filth, stench and ensuing health hazards for all these," asked Dilip Mehta, president of the environment protection committee of Phursungi.

The villagers grilled the PMC's the newly appointed officer on special duty Pramod Yadav and officials of the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) for the administration's failure on various fronts of municipal solid waste management They put a bottle filled with leachate in front of the officials and demanded solution to the problem.

"We asked the PMC and MPCB officials why they have not taken strict action against the Hanjer garbage processing plant for not processing the daily amount of garbage and letting it pile up and why they have not filed a criminal case against the operator of the plant for openly releasing leachate into the environment without treating it properly," said Sanjay Harpale, deputy sarpanch, Phursungi grampanchayat.

TOI in a special report published on August 4, had reported how the leachate was flowing all over the garbage depot, causing health hazards threat to the families staying nearby. The leachate eventually flows into drainage lines that open into the Mula-Mutha river, which is a gross violation of environment norms.

"The final decision on preventing garbage containers from entering the village will be taken after a meeting with PMC officials on August 11," said Ranjit Raskar, member of Phursungi grampanchayat.

PMC official Yadav, however, asked the villagers to allow the administration some time to prepare an action plan based on the works prioritised by villagers.

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Boats, birds and the question of Leachate at Redwood Landfill

As the boat returned to the main channel and continued south, Jette, Page and a third volunteer, Jane Johnson, voiced their concern with the landfill.

“It’s like taking one of the most valuable properties in the universe and putting San Quentin or Alcatraz on it,” said Jette.

The landfill abuts San Antonio Creek. Pipelines snake down its levees carrying leachate — water collected from the compressed waste — away from the garbage and into a series of trenches and a collection pool.

Leachate concerns

Surrounded by water as it is, the dump’s leachate has been one of the main areas of concern from activists. In May, advocacy group the Green Coalition filed a lawsuit contesting county and state decisions to allow Redwood Landfill to expand to 26 million cubic yards of waste.

“We didn’t want them to build on a bad idea,” said Bruce Baum, a spokesperson for the group.

Though state regulations mandate that landfills be lined, usually with a protective layer of plastic, Redwood Landfill is unlined.

However, that doesn’t mean leachate is leaking into the surrounding water, said the landfill’s general manager, Jessica Jones.

Those same regulations also state that a landfill can be lined with a natural liner, she said, and Redwood Landfill sits on a thick layer of bay mud, between 20 and 40 feet thick, which acts as a natural barrier, especially as it is compressed by the increased weight of accumulated trash, she said.

Monitoring

The Green Coalition claims that the landfill’s groundwater is not being adequately monitored. They worry that while regulations mandate three years of independent, third-party monitoring, the landfill will self-monitor and be without accountability to a neutral source after that.

Redwood pays a third-party consultant to monitor its water, a standard industry practice said Jones.

The landfill has not found any evidence of leachate leakage, said Jones.

But Lawrence Rose, an assistant professor of medicine at UCSF who analyzed the monitoring results and testified on behalf of the Green Coalition, came to a different conclusion.

“A variety of toxic CAM metals were found, including mercury, as well as fluorides, nitrates, bromide, nitrite, phosphate, sulfide and ammonia,” he wrote in a document prepared for the state agency.

Levees

The coalition also worries about the stability of Redwood’s levees.

Central to the group’s concern is the landfill’s shape, which Baum likened to a wedding cake. As the landfill collects garbage, it will rise at a slope of 3 feet in and 1 foot up, instead of 4 feet in and 1 foot up, making it steeper and, in the Green Coalition’s estimation, more likely to collapse in a natural disaster.

Jones said that according to a series of complicated tests Redwood underwent as part of an environmental impact report certification, the landfill was found to be structurally stable.

However, Baum and Friends of the Petaluma River member Jonathan Totse both said they’ve seen evidence of erosion at various times during the rainy season.

The future of waste

Baum said the landfill’s expansion would not be in keeping with the principals of “zero waste,” a philosophy that encourages recycling and has found support around California in the last 10 years.

But with composing, recycling and a new “gas-to-energy” plant, which transfers methane and carbon dioxide from the waste into electricity, Jones said they’re on their way.

What’s more, she said the future of waste lies as much with local residents as the dump.

And without a landfill in Marin, Jones said trash would have to be transported out of county, which will put more diesel trucks on the road.

“That’s a real carbon footprint,” she said.

View the original article here

Processing plant breaks down, garbage piles grow - Times of India

Processing plant breaks down, garbage piles grow - Times Of India - Umesh Isalkar, TNN Aug 4, 2011, 05.03am IST

(Buring waste video above is not related to the article content.)

IPUNE: Mounds of unprocessed garbage is why leachate is oozing in large quantities at the garbage depot in Phursungi-Urali Devachi. Civic officials said a breakdown in the plant had led to the piling up of waste.

Open dumping of garbage was stopped at the landfill site a year ago, but processing the mountains of trash take weeks and in the monsoon, it can spiral out of control.

Villagers said the civic body continues to dump garbage instead of capping the landfill. "Had the collected garbage been processed daily, there would be no pile-up," said Phursungi gram panchayat member Ranjit Raskar.

Another villager blamed the garbage processing plants. "They are inadequate to take care of the daily generation of waste. The Pune Municipal Corporation claims it has stopped open dumping. This means it should treat and process the garbage the same day. Instead, we see huge piles of garbage," he added.

The workers at the processing plants said that the plants were inadequate to deal with the generation of house-waste in Pune. Suresh Jagtap, in-charge of municipal solid waste department at PMC, said, "The plant had a breakdown recently following which the garbage remained unprocessed. The civic body is not dumping garbage."

Last May, the villagers ensured an immediate halt to open dumping since it had led to water contamination, turned the land barren and caused health problems. The then district collector Chandrakant Dalvi said open dumping would halt by May 2010, but it happened only in June.

The twin landfill sites at Phursungi and Urali Devachi cover 165 acres. The Hanjer processing plant occupies 65 acres and three acres are occupied by the carcass plant. Eleven acres were capped a few years ago and 50 to 55 acres of garbage-filled land is awaiting the process.

The garbage contains 51 % degradable waste, 31 % plastic, 1 % toxic component and 0.1 % highly toxic components. "This 0.1 % of highly toxic components emits dioxin, which is so hazardous that it can cause asthma, cancer and other respiratory ailments. It can also create impurities in the body, including the nervous system. The percentage is not trivial as it concerns 0.1 % of 12,000 metric tonnes," said environment expert Amar Dhere.

View the original article here

Flocculation and Precipitation For the Treatment of Landfill Leachate

Flocculation and precipitation has often been proposed as a low cost and simple to implement process for municipal solid waste landfill leachate treatment. It is also a natural first thought for anyone new to leachate treatment that the combination of these two processes might be a very effective treatment combination, as they can be for certain other types of contaminated water.

The purpose of flocculation is to form flocs of particles that settle quickly. Generally , flocculation follows coagulation to get rid of colloidal (floc) particles quickly through rapid settlement.

These particles have dimensions in the region of one nm-1 m, and are distinguished by a abnormally large surface area. As an effect, they are very susceptible to surface forces. During coagulation, colloidal particles are destabilized to improve their ability to merge into bigger particles and then this speeds up their removal by gravity. Destabilization is helped by way of chemical reagents ( coagulants ) which are chosen to be minimize repulsive forces thru neutralization of electric charges present in colloidal particles ; this occurs by way of bonding or adsorption mechanisms.

All these points it is necessary to consider concern hydrophobic colloidal particles, for which stabilization derives from negative electrical charges. The more common coagulants are Aluminium Al), and Iron (Fe ( III )) salts, which are identified by multivalent ions with opposite charges.

These salts have an acid behaviour and, therefore, change the physico-chemical traits ( pH, alkalinity ) of wastewater. Their potency relies on the alkalinity of wastewater. Polymeric organic compounds ( polyelectrolytes ) are also often used as coagulants due to their capacity for charge neutralization ( cationic polyelectrolytes ) and to extend bridging between particles. The merger of destabilized colloidal particles is augmented by controlled stirring, and is further helped by addition of categorical chemicals ( 'flocculating agents' ). Among these, turned-on silica or clay ( inorganic flocculants ) and polyacetate ( organic flocculants ) are principally made use of.

Likewise , Al and Fe salts also behave as flocculants, since their low solubility permits rainfall with floe merger and concomitant capture of colloidal particles by electrostatic action or adsorption. Coagulation / flocculation is in a position to reduce colloidal suspension which is partly in charge of turbidity and color.

Also, organic substances, principally those with the larger range dimensions ( about one nm ), are concerned in the flocculation process, because they are adsorbed in the flocs and successively removed thru gravity settling.

Commonly, the term 'precipitation' is used to describe the phase that straight away follows flocculation, and, also, to the formation of insoluble compounds got by adding reagents which shift the chemical equilibrium towards the insoluble form of the compound or the elements which need to be removed.

Precipitation is principally applied to metals removal ( particularly heavy metals ), with metal hydroxide or metal sulphide formation, or phosphorus removal by formation of insoluble compounds with cationic metals, including Al or Fe coagulants. Many experimental studies utilizing coagulation / flocculation for the removal of organic substances from raw leachate have been conducted, essentially in the 1970s.

Salts of Aluminium and Iron together with lime were principally made use of as precipitation agents. Results were adverse, as COD removal potency lower than 40% was noted. The reason behind these low efficiencies can be ascribed to the incapacity of the method to get rid of substances aside from molecules of large dimensions and high molecular weight.

It was concluded that, higher treatment potency is possible but just for 'old leachate' ( with low BOD / COD ratios ) or for biologically pre-treated leachate. In fact it is most often needed for 'young leachate' (acetogenic leachate) which is distinguished by high levels of volatile trans-acids, i.e. small dimensions and only a little in the way of precipitable molecules, so that the removal involves only a minor fragment of the total of organic compounds in raw leachate.

Researchers also cite many other drawbacks like the rise of salt content and the low potency of ammoniacal compound removal. This last is almost always the final concern which rules out the use of this process in the minds of most leachate treatment experts.

OK. So we have told you the disdvantages. What are the alternatives? To find out how leachate treatment can be achieved without the problems cited here visit the leachate web site for all you need to know about garbage juice. If you still need a suitable reagent for this method go to the flocculant supply web site.

City pens agreement with AbiBo to process Mud Lake leachate - Daily Miner and News

The owners of the former Kenora paper mill have turned to the city to help cleanup its landfill at Mud Lake.

(The video follows a similar wetlands subject to this blog but is not related to the blog content.)

Kenora city council authorized, at a special meeting July 28, an agreement with AbiBow Canada to treat non-hazardous leachate from the Mud Lake landfill. The city will accept leachate from the former mill landfill in the municipal sewer system for treatment and disposal at the municipal wastewater plant at the rate of $0.9891 per cubic metre.

"The two parties were in negotiation and Thursday was the earliest opportunity to formalize the agreement prior to the provincially imposed deadline, Friday," commented Kenora chief administrative officer Karen Brown.

Brown noted a procedure for processing effluent was previously in place between the city and the paper mill.

"The city is using services that were previously provided to Abitibi," she said. "It was a quick and concerted solution as the city has everything in place."

The action follows a May 13 Ministry of Environment directive to protect Rabbit Lake in the event of a high water year. The ministry and AbiBow agreed June 3 to act due to concerns of potential spring runoff water overflowing from Mud Lake into Rabbit Lake and downstream into the Winnipeg River system. The ministry declared an emergency exception to the usually mandatory 30-day public consultation to address the situation.

The ministry is holding public consultations on the Margach landfill until Aug. 11. The 11-hectare engineered wetland was designed by Abitibi in 1986 for wood waste, including bark, secondary treatment bio-solids, boiler ash, clinkers and sludge from primary clarifiers and the recycling facility to absorb phosphorus prior to discharge into Laurensons Lake.

The Ministry of Environment determined Laurensons Lake, downstream from the wetland area, is at capacity for assimilating phosphorus and is proposing a Director's Order to close the site.

Phosphorus is a nutrient associated with algae blooms which depletes suspended oxygen, affecting water quality and fish habitat.

The ministry is also seeking $2.3 million from AbiBow to finance ongoing tests and inspections of the Margach landfill.

View the original article here

Landfill Closure Marks The End of an Era - Patch.com

Genaro Peña helps a Palo Alto resident on the final day of the city landfill's operations.

The hundreds of seagulls that incessantly scavenge the amorphous mound of trash at the Palo Alto Landfill seemed entirely unaware Thursday that after 80 years of continuous operation, the dump was closing, and it was time for them to move on.

As the birds dodged a thundering yellow earthmover, a small line of cars inched forward to take their turns unloading their trash. Landfill Manager Ron Arp, surveying the activity from atop a nearby ridge, was excited about the man-made hill being transformed into parkland but was nonetheless subdued. He had, after all, just said goodbye to two heavy-equipment operators.

“It is a solemn day,” he said. “We are eventually laying off all of the staff except two people.”

By the end of the year, nine more crew members will be laid off, leaving only a skeleton crew of two people—a landfill technician and a coordinator—to oversee the transition of the landfill to a pastoral meadow.

The two equipment operators who worked their last day today were uncharacteristically silent, Arp said.

“They were very quiet and reserved, and they kind of … they knew this day was coming for a long time,” he said.

Arp remains hopeful, however, that the remaining crew members will be able to be retrained and transition to other city jobs.

During its regular operation, the landfill accepted approximately 120 tons of garbage every day, including 60 tons of yard trimmings, 20 tons of concrete and enough soil to keep the grade of the hill in accordance with its planned design.

That design, incidentally, was so alluring that last fall the City Council put the landfill on a fast track in order to get it converted to parkland as quickly as possible.

“We’ve been in a fast-fill scenario since September,” Arp said.

Mike Sarter, interim director of public works, said the first thing residents will notice is that the landfill will be covered.

“They will no longer see garbage out there or debris,” he said.

The gates will be closed to the public while that cover is installed. The “cap process” will includes bringing green waste and dirt onto the site in order to create a healthy soil for native grasses, he said.

The cap will also include piping with wells for leachate—a hazardous soup of byproducts leftover from the landfill—as well as for methane, which will be piped over to the incinerator at the water treatment facility and burned.

Once the cap is deemed safe according to State Solid Waste Management Board criteria, native species will be planted on the 51 acres, and the space will be annexed to adjacent Byxbee Park, almost doubling that park’s size.

“Once this is all capped and approved by the state,” said Arp, “which is hopefully by the end of 2012, if not the beginning of 2013, this all turns into parkland, and residents can enjoy a 126-acre park.”

As for Arp, his duties as landfill manager are ending, but he will remain in the same position and be in charge of the contracts for building the cap and installing the leachate and methane collection systems.

“As the old saying goes,” said Sarter, “landfills never close. We have a 30-year commitment after the closure of the landfill to maintain the infrastructure.”

For Arp, the final day of collection at the landfill marked a major turning point in Palo Alto history.

“It’s the end of an era,” he said.

View the original article here

Oswego County moves closer to solving leachate problem - Fulton Valley News

by Carol Thompson

The Oswego County Legislature’s Infrastructure and Facilities Committee approved spending $19,500 for a consultant to continue with the development of a treatment system that will remove ammonia from the Bristol Hill Landfill leachate.

During the July 26 meeting, the committee moved a resolution to the floor for consideration of the expenditure.

According to Oswego County Solid Waste Director Frank Visser, the experimental testing performed at the Minoa Waste Water Treatment Plant was successful and the county would eventually like to move forward with the construction of a large scale test reactor.

Last year, the committee grappled with the leachate problem when the

City of Fulton was advised that its new permit from the Environmental Protection Agency wouldn’t allow the city to accept the leachate without having it first be treated for ammonia at the point of origin, which is the Bristol Hill Landfill.

As of next July, if the high ammonia levels continued, the county would need to find an alternate disposal site.

“The ammonia is the result of the lime stabilized sludge that the City of Oswego generates,” County Administrator Phil Church told the committee at that time.

-Look for the full story in the Wednesday edition of the Valley News...

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Wolumla super tip approved despite worries of leachate spills - Bega District News

The proposed super tip for the Bega Valley has been given the go-ahead.
The packed gallery in the Bega Valley Shire Council chambers rang with cries of “shame” when the Joint Regional Planning Panel (JRPP) on Wednesday night handed down its decision.

However, in announcing its decision chair Pam Allen placed stringent conditions on the project to ensure the environment and local amenity around Wanatta Lane in Wolumla would not be affected.

Ms Allen said she understood the concern of locals who were to have the waste from the whole of the Shire dumped in their vicinity.

“It is quite obvious that locals do not trust council to manage the tips they have, let alone something this size,” she said.

“But those tips were old and council has admitted it doesn’t do it as well as it could, but this new facility must be managed better.”

Ms Allen also called for a community consultative committee to be established to work with council on issues with the tip.

Earlier, the panel heard submissions from locals who made their feelings known, covering much the same issues as previously.

These included possible water contamination from leachate spills, the failure of tip liners, wind-blown litter, air quality, extra traffic, the removal of trees during the upgrading of Wanatta Lane, soil erosion and the reduction of house values caused by the tip’s location.

One major concern was the size of the tip and the calculations of how much compacted waste it would hold over the proposed 30-year life.

It was argued the tip had a lifespan of just 12 years and would therefore create more problems in a much shorter time.

Another issue raised was recycling and reuse, programs council is lacking, according to a speaker and the JRPP.

At the end of the submissions the panel grilled council’s waste services manager Toby Brown on aspects of the tip.

Mr Brown refuted many of the opinions given in the submissions and gave explanations on the inclusion of mitigation procedures in the event of problems arising.

He was questioned extensively by panel member Paul Anderson on the differing calculations of the tip’s capacity, the machinery involved in compacting and the estimated increase that would come from population growth – 4 per cent according to an objector and 1 per cent according to council.

“We needed to apply a growth rate and we applied the 1 per cent estimated population increase,” Mr Brown said.

Mr Anderson asked, in relation to compacting the waste and therefore the tip’s capacity, what size compacter council would buy because the proposed CAT 816, “in my limited knowledge of plant and equipment is not the biggest compacter you could use”.

Mr Brown said: “Council will acquire a landfill compactor which is the best balance between capital cost and value for money.”

Leachate containment was a concern of panel member Allen Grimwood, who asked how it would be contained.

Mr Brown said there were procedures in place to mitigate any spillage of leachate.

“Our (dual) liner system is best practice and will protect groundwater from being contaminated,” he said.

“There will be three leachate dams on
 site that meet current guidelines and the capacity has been modelled to contain all leachate generated in the wettest year on record which was 1934.”

When Mr Brown’s questioning was completed, panel member Alison McCabe said it was time for waste management in the Shire to be upgraded, but also conceded there was a “lot of angst and questions over site selection process”.

“Notwithstanding how that came about we have a site and an application... and our job is to look at that.

“I am satisfied with the extent of the mitigation and the management process (with that) so that I can put forward the recommendation.”

Ms McCabe, however, added conditions regarding landscaping and rehabilitation to the site with landscaping to be carried out before any other work was done.

Mr Grimwood seconded the motion but said he wanted a condition that said when each stage was finished it was to be rehabilitated to its original condition.

Mr Anderson said he was “betwixt and between” on the matter but would vote against it as he didn’t believe the community’s concerns over leachate, groundwater and air quality had been addressed properly.

Ms Allen supported the recommendation but asked for the establishment of a community consultative committee that could work with council on issues that might arise.

“There have been many comments critical of the way council manages its tips and I think there’s a lack of trust towards council (in this regard),” she said.

“This has been a tough and controversial decision and if the tip is not managed properly it wouldn’t be a good neighbour.

“But if council and the committee works together and meets on a regular basis that would be an improvement.”

After the meeting mayor Tony Allen said it had been a long, drawn out, difficult process which had caused great debate.

“There was a level of concern and stress that really shouldn’t have happened and came about because of the delays in any decision making process which need to be detailed and thorough out of respect to all involved,” he said.

Cr Allen said he welcomed the recommendation to form a committee and hoped it would engage with council to make sure the new facility is “as good as it could possibly be”.

“I also take note of the management issues and I am sure that will be looked into,” he said.

One of the most vocal objectors to the tip and spokesman for Wolumla Residents Action Group Jeff Smith said he was “disappointed, dismayed and horrified” at the decision.

“I think the panel was totally dismissive of stakeholders’ concerns, all the things we have been talking about for 10 years were dismissed,” he said.

Mr Smith said he had no faith in council’s waste management services to properly manage the facility and could see big problems ahead.

“I don’t think I’ll go on the proposed committee either - I’ve been on them before and it’ll have no power so it won’t be of any value.”

But the last decade had not been a complete waste of time, Mr Smith said.

“The original plans were terrible so at least we might have made it slightly better.”

He also called on councillors to work with member for Bega Andrew Constance to identify a site on Crown Land that could be used.

“It might not be too late,” he said.

View the original article here

Firm fined £20000 for landfill leachate breaches - The Press, York

Monday 25th July 2011

A NORTH Yorkshire recycling firm has been fined £20,000 for breaching a permit at a landfill site.

Yorwaste, owned by North Yorkshire County Council and City of York Council, manages more than one million tonnes of waste each year, and provides a range of services from engineered landfill and recycling to liquid waste treatment and the supply of landfill gas for power generation.

The company was also ordered to pay costs of £2,500 to the Environment Agency, which brought the case, and a £15 victim surcharge at Skipton magistrates court for breaching its permit conditions at Skibden Quarry landfill.

Yorwaste Limited, whose head quarters are in Northallerton, operates Skibden Quarry landfill near Skipton. The site is regulated by an environmental permit from the Environment Agency. The landfill site receives non-hazardous landfill waste from households, commerce and industry. Local councils and private companies have all deposited waste at the site.

Holly Webb, prosecuting for the Environment Agency explained to the court how one of the permit conditions states there should be no more than one metre depth of leachate at the landfill site. Leachate is a liquid that comes from the waste as it degrades and can pollute groundwater if it is not properly managed.

On 28 August 2008 Environment Agency officers conducted a routine inspection at the site. They saw pools of water and one area had landfill gas bubbling through it.

Officers discussed the levels of leachate with site staff and were told that on the previous day levels were higher than set out in the permit, at a depth of 7.8 metres.

On 9 October 2008, Yorwaste were served with a notice to reduce the leachate levels below a metre. On November 21 2008 Yorwaste were told that steps they had taken to address the levels were considered satisfactory following another site inspection.

Under the environmental permit, Yorwaste has to report leachate levels to the Environment Agency on a regular basis. Three further breaches of 3.39 metres, 6.1 metres and 12.5 metres were recorded in 2009 after the notice conditions had been met.

In interview, Yorwaste accepted that leachate levels were higher than they should have been.

Yorwaste said they had spent over £300,000 on leachate control and tankering leachate off the site during 2009.

Permitted levels were revised to three metres on 20th August 2010 in a new permit after Yorwaste submitted a revised
application.

In mitigation, Yorwaste entered an early guilty plea, they complied with the notice given to them in 2008 and the leachate did not cause environmental harm.

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