Guam Waterworks Authority will need to be careful about accepting leachate at their sewage works. Leachate being a very high strength liquid could nock out a smallish treatment works. Here, quoted below, is the article to which I refer:
A company that hopes to build a landfill in Santa Rita has proposed to truck leachate to the Hag't'a wastewater treatment plant, but hasn't sought the approval of the Guam Waterworks Authority.
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Wagdy Guirguis, president of Guam Resource Recovery Partners, said Tuesday that trucking leachate is just a backup plan that will never actually be used, but his company's assessment of its proposed Guatali landfill says otherwise.
And there have been no discussions about Waterworks accepting thousands of gallons of leachate, which is basically garbage juice, from the Guatali landfill, said agency spokeswoman Heidi Ballendorf.
If a truck full of leachate shows up tomorrow unannounced, it would be turned away, she said. Unless an agreement is negotiated to preserve water quality, the Waterworks will reject the waste, she said.
That could be a problem for Guam Resource Recovery Partners, which is seeking a permit for its Guatali landfill proposal from the Guam Environmental Protection Agency.
Guam EPA has asked the public to comment on the controversial proposal. Comments are due by Dec. 13.
Guam Resource Recovery Partners has proposed to build its landfill on an 87-acre parcel of Chamorro Land Trust property in the Guatali area of Santa Rita. The 22-acre landfill cells would be bracketed by wetlands and north of a river basin.
If the landfill permit is approved, Guam Resource Recovery Partners plans to collect garbage on the property for three to five years, at which point it hopes to install an incinerator, which will burn the waste to produce energy. An incinerator of this type is currently illegal in Guam, so the plan hinges on a revision of law and additional permits.
However, in the years before the incinerator is built, Guam Resource Recovery Partners plans to stockpile waste in its two landfill cells, and a landfill facility like that will inevitably produce leachate.
The Guatali landfill is expected to produce an average of 36,000 gallons of leachate daily, according to an impact assessment filed with the permit application. The total will increase in the rainy season, when more storm water seeps through the landfill.
According to the proposal, some of the leachate will be absorbed through a process called "recirculation," which filters the trashy liquid back through the landfill, where it is re-absorbed.
Any leftover leachate will be trucked to the Hag't'a wastewater treatment plant, the impact assessment states. The document doesn't estimate how much liquid would be sent to the treatment plant.
If Guatali goes as planned, no leachate will make the trip to Hag't'a, Guirguis said. Despite the statements in the impact assessment, Guirguis said Guam Resource Recovery Partners expects that all of the Guatali leachate will be absorbed or evaporated when it recirculates through the landfill.
The company hasn't negotiated an agreement with GWA because it doesn't expect it will need one, Guirguis said. Recirculation should dispose of all the landfill's leachate through absorption and evaporation, even during the rainy season, Guirguis said.
The landfill impact assessment says the exact opposite.
"It is expected that leachate generation will exceed losses due to absorption and evaporation during the rainy season," the Guam Resource Recovery Partners document states. "At such times, leachate will be trucked off site for disposal at the Agana wastewater treatment plant."
Regardless of whether it's a backup plan or not, if Guam Resource Recovery Partners wants to dispose of a single drop of leachate in Hag't'a, it will have to broker a deal with GWA, Ballendorf said.
For example, Gershman, Brickner & Bratton Inc., the federal receiver in charge of solid waste operations in Guam, including the government landfill in Inarajan, only was allowed to send leachate to the Inarajan wastewater treatment plant after negotiating a similar agreement.
Now the receiver is able to pump its leachate to GWA's southern facility, but the company had to spend millions to "do it right," Ballendorf said.
"They promised to fund a five-year study of leachate to make sure it doesn't hurt the wastewater plant," Ballendorf wrote in an email. "If the leachate becomes a problem, they have agreed to put in a pre-treatment facility to fix that. Money is put aside in escrow for that."
David Manning, a local representative for Gershman, Brickner & Bratton Inc., wrote in an email that the receiver funded some capacity upgrades to ensure the Inarajan plant wouldn't be overwhelmed by the increase in waste.
Guirguis insisted the Layon landfill's leachate pipe wasn't in operation yet, but Manning and GWA confirmed it was. Guirguis also said the Layon landfill was using the re-circulation method, but Manning said this was never considered by the receiver.
"While I am not an expert in this area, ... I do know that one of the primary reasons we did not consider the re-circulation method is that it apparently has significant potential for problems in wet climates," Manning said.
