This article expresses some surprise that Old Albion Landfill still oozes Leachate. Leachate is being produced "unexpectedly" long after landfill closure at the Old Albion Landfill, and yet it has always been apparent that modern landfills may take centuries before leachate ceases. The highly contaminated liquid was first spotted about two years ago, oozing from the site also known as the Orleans Sanitary Landfill. It is a 35-acre site that was closed and capped in the mid-1990s. Read on for the article and visit the original site for further information:
The liquid – leachate or garbage juice from the landfill – had been pumped and hauled to the Albion sewer plant for about 15 years. That was until 2009, when a post-closure account, set up to pay for the landfill’s leachate pumping, was depleted.Now the landfill is full of water, and it’s migrating out of the pumping holes in the big mound along Densmore Road. Dan Schuth, manager of the Orleans County Soil and Water Conservation District, worries the leachate could reach Sandy Creek.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation said the leachate doesn’t pose an imminent threat, but the DEC wants the liquid pumped and hauled away.
“There is no cause for immediate concern,” said Linda Vera, DEC citizen participation specialist. “However, since leachate is accumulating within the Orleans Sanitary Landfill, it should be routinely collected to avoid the potential of groundwater contamination.”
Groundwater monitoring wells surround OSL, and samples were routinely collected and analyzed until the fund was exhausted, Vera said.
Albion town officials have been approached by Richard Penfold from Blasdell about a new landfill in the community, a project that was first proposed by Waste Management in the mid-1990s. The DEC approved a permit for Waste Management, but the Town Board later rejected the project, a decision that was upheld in court.
As part of its proposal for a new 78-acre landfill, Waste Management offered to take care of OSL and another neighboring landfill, the 18-acre McKenna site. McKenna is a Superfund site and continues to have its leachate pumped and hauled to the Albion sewer plant.
Albion town officials don’t believe OSL is a town responsibility.
“It’s a privately owned site,” said Robert Roberson, the attorney for the town. “It’s not the town’s. We don’t have anything to do with it.”
Waste Management was leasing the property from John and Irene Smith, the former OSL owners, but that lease ended last year and the site is back is the hands of the Smith’s bankrupt estate, said Dawn Allen, the county’s real property tax director.
“The leachate needs to be pumped out and hauled away,” Roberson said. “I don’t know whose responsibility it is.”
Waste Management took over the OSL site after the operators declared bankruptcy in the early 1990s, leaving an open landfill. Waste Management took in more garbage at the site, ensuring the landfill was properly capped. The company set aside some of the money from that operation in 1993 and 1994 for a post-closure account. That fund ran out of money in 2009, Vera said.
She said the ongoing care for the landfill should fall on the owners, the Smiths, who declared bankruptcy. The town or the county, because they never operated the site, isn’t required to take over the post-closure care of the landfill, Vera said.
“However, either or both may choose to provide post-closure care due to concern about the environment,” she said.
During last week’s Town Board meeting, Roberson said that Penfold, a former president of CID Landfill, believes the Waste Management DEC permit is still valid in Albion.
That permit expires in November 2013, Vera said, but “many factors may complicate another operator's pursuit of that permit.” The permit has since been suspended and the original project, approved by the DEC in 2003, never commenced. Waste Management also requested that a related DEC air permit be discontinued.
While Schuth is worried that the leachate could reach Sandy Creek, DEC inspectors see no evidence of that so far, Vera said.
The surface water from the landfill drains to a quarry on the south side of the canal, Vera said. That quarry then discharges under the canal to another quarry on the north side of the canal, which then discharges to a tributary to Sandy Creek. Although the canal is close to the landfill, “there is little likelihood that any leachate from OSL would enter the canal,” she said.
Schuth, the Soil and Water leader, also expressed concern that the continued water buildup in the landfill could jeopardize the structural integrity of the landfill.
Structural stability of the landfill is difficult to predict, but it would be unlikely there will be a “blowout” of the side slope of the landfill, Vera said.
“A more likely possibility is leachate seeping into the groundwater over time because of the buildup of leachate on the liner,” she said.
The older portion of the landfill only has a compacted soil liner, which met the regulations when that section was built. Later phases of the landfill were constructed with improved liner systems, but none conform to the current requirement of a double composite liner system, Vera said.
Roberson, the attorney for the town, doesn’t expect the issue of caring for the landfill to go away anytime soon. And Albion won’t be alone as more privately owned landfills meet their capacity and face ongoing monitoring and maintenance.
“This is a looming problem down the road,” Roberson said. “These kinds of problems will only get more pronounced over the years.”
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