State plans upgrades at closed landfill, By LAUREL BEAGER, Editor - International Falls Daily Journal

County considers transferring ownership of site to state

As the state of Minnesota prepares to spend $5.5 million to improve a closed landfill in International Falls, the question of whether Koochiching County or the state should own the property has been raised.

The landfill located in International Falls is owned by Koochiching County, but is subject to a landfill cleanup agreement with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, which holds an easement to the property and response action equipment on the property, according to Tom Newman, land manager with the Closed Landfill and Superfund programs of the Remediation Division of the MPCA.

Newman met with the county board this week to propose that the county turn total ownership of the property over to the state.

Newman told the board that the MPCA used proceeds from the sale of state general obligation bonds for capital costs of environmental response actions that the MPCA took at the landfill beginning in 2003. As a result, certain requirements on sale or other disposition of the property are imposed. To ensure that requirements of state law and the commissioner’s order are carried out, a declaration must be signed by the state and county and recorded.

Newman explained that the state is responsible for the long-term care of the landfill, but Koochiching County also has liability as the owners of the property.Newman said the transfer of ownership to the state would make his duties easier.

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Meanwhile, Newman said the MPCA is seeking bonding money this session to make improvements at the landfill site. Should the Legislature not grant the money, the MPCA would seek it the next year.

He said the $5.5 million would be used to place an impervious cover over the landfill; upgrade the system that collects water leaching from the landfill, thereby improving drainage; and increase the amount of leachate removed from the site from 6,000 gallons per day to 24,000 gallons per day. Should the leachate amount increase as expected, the state would consider installing a forced main line from thel leachate pond to the North Koochiching Sanitary Sewer District.

Commissioners asked if the county could dovetail on the state’s project should it move forward with installing a line to the sewer treatment plant by connecting nearby residences to sewer at the same time.

Newman said the county project would need to meet the time line of the state.

Commissioners asked questions about liability should the leachate “plume” move off the site toward residences.

Newman said the state accepts no liability, just responsibility.

“My job is to make sure the plume does not move off site,” he said, adding that he would guide development and the county could implement development plans to avoid installing wells nearby.

Should the plume move toward existing residences in a natural way, the state would take action to keep people safe, including installing filtration systems on wells in the area of concern.

However, he said, questions could arise should a high capacity well be installed nearby that draws the plume toward residences and contaminates wells.

A closed landfill in Northome was also discussed, and Newman said the state could provide easements for access to logging areas, but the landfill itself could not be used as a staging area for logs.

“All our concerns are about houses and development — people putting wells in,” he said.

Newman said at some point in the future, all properly closed and handled landfills can be used. However, he said it may take generations before the properties stop producing methane gas and leachate allowing for development.

He said a bill at the Legislature now would allow the state to “delist” all or portions of closed landfills that staff feel are safe for development. Now, he said, the closed landfills can not be used.

Newman was asked to research whether the state would consider a reverter clause that would provide state ownership to the property, but would revert back to county ownership at some point.
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Coal-ash landfill vote draws protest - Las Vegas Review - Journal

 Jason Bean/Las Vegas Review-Journal

Kenton Lee talks at an Earth Day rally Friday about health problems he blames on operations at the Reid Gardner coal-fired power plant. He is joined by other Moapa Pauites and Sierra Club members during the 6 p.m. rally outside the Southern Nevada Health District office on Shadow Lane

In a rally to commemorate Earth Day, about 25 environmentalists and members of the Moapa Band of Paiutes gathered outside Southern Nevada Health District offices Friday to protest the board's previous approval of an application to expand a coal-ash landfill near the tribe's reservation.

They said they want the health district board to rescind its Oct. 28 action and deny NV Energy a permit to expand its landfill at the Reid Gardner Generating Station, 50 miles northeast of Las Vegas, when the board meets Thursday. The existing landfill is 91 acres and has no barrier to keep contaminants from leaching into groundwater. The expansion would be 24 acres and have a single-layer barrier against leaching.

At the rally, Southern Paiutes said they continue to experience respiratory problems and other health effects from coal-ash dust that blows on windy days from the plant's existing landfill and evaporation pond operations. They also fear long-term pollution of groundwater that feeds the Muddy River.

"It smells like rotten eggs," said 21-year-old Ashly Osborne, holding a sign: "Big Coal and Big Oil Make Us Sick," as she stood in front of the health district building on Shadow Lane.

Another woman complained of the rotten-egg smell from hydrogen sulfide gas that emanates from the ponds. It stems from a liquid used to extract an air pollutant, sulfur dioxide, from the plant's stack.

"Our great-grandchildren will be affected by this," said Eunice Ohte.

In a telephone interview from the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, Ore., attorney Daniel Galpern said, "We are requesting that the board revisit its initial decision (to expand the landfill) in light of the fact that they were under a misunderstanding about the evidence regarding the risk of the landfill."

Galpern, representing the Sierra Club, said the board was misled by NV Energy's claim that toxic leachate from the landfill would be insignificant when the board voted 8-4 to approve the company's application.

Some information wasn't available at the time of the vote, and computer modeling of plant's existing and proposed landfill shows the amount of contamination that could be released is substantial, he wrote in a letter Wednesday to board Chairwoman Linda Strickland. Millions of gallons of leachate per year could enter groundwater, the Muddy River and eventually Lake Mead, Southern Nevada's primary drinking water supply.

NV Energy released a statement Friday saying its coal-fired Reid Gardner Generating Station "maintains a fully-compliant" landfill.

The statement from NV Energy spokeswoman Jennifer Schuricht notes that expansion of the Class III industrial waste storage area was granted last year and next week the health district staff will update the board "and detail the operating conditions and requirements to be implemented by NV Energy for this expansion."

In a letter Tuesday to the health district and board members, Galpern said a review of reports the company provided after the October vote with data plugged into a hydrologic computer model "clearly establish that substantial -- indeed, enormous -- quantities of leachate have been generated within the landfill and will continue to be generated there, and to migrate to groundwater."

"These unlawful and significant discharges may threaten vital local and regional water resources. The NV Energy-supplied information counsels you to order a full stop to development at the landfill, both present and future operations," Galpern wrote.

Coal-ash waste disposed in the landfill contains a number of harmful and toxic chemicals, according to the Sierra Club, including arsenic, selenium, lead, mercury and hexavalent chromium linked to organ disease, cancer, respiratory illness and nerve damage.

At the Oct. 28 meeting and open-house venues prior to the vote, members of the Moapa Band of Paiutes told board members and the health district's staff that the 312 Paiutes who live on the reservation have experienced a myriad of health problems that they blame on fine particulate matter from the plant and its landfill.

"You should come out and look at it on a windy day. It's killing us," Paiute Eric Lee said at a meeting in Moapa.

Others said particles sometimes come down on their homes like snowflakes.

Charles H. Norris, an expert for a geology and hydrology consulting firm in Denver, detailed the landfill's pollution potential in a 25-page report that was sent Friday to the health district board.

He found that active operations will produce 3 million to 46 million gallons per year of coal-ash leachate migration to the groundwater and the closed landfill will produce 1.2 million gallons per year of leachate that enters the groundwater during the life of a protective liner system and 1.6 million gallons per year after that.

In his report, Norris said NV Energy needs to show what impacts of the landfill expansion will be as required by Nevada law.

"Only after that is done can the board review the demonstration to determine whether the proposal will, in fact, prevent degradation of waters of the state. But, not yet. The applicant has yet to do its job," Norris wrote.

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Review on landfill leachate treatments.: An article from: American Journal of Applied Sciences

This digital document is an article from American Journal of Applied Sciences, published by Science Publications on April 1, 2009. The length of the article is 9811 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the author: Key words: Landfill leachate, review, biological treatment, physical/chemical treatment, membrane filtration

Citation Details
Title: Review on landfill leachate treatments.
Author: Abdulhussain A. Abbas
Publication: American Journal of Applied Sciences (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2009
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Cranston tells Resource Recovery to pay its bills - Providence Journal

CRANSTON — The Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation has until Sept. 27 to settle a $2-million debt in back charges or the city will initiate legal action, members of the City Council’s public works committee said Thursday.

Council members say the owner and operator of the state Central Landfill in Johnston snubbed settlement attempts for months.

“They can’t continue to put their heads in the sand and act like we don’t exist,” Council President John E. Lanni Jr. said.

Friday, Michael J. OConnell, the corporation’s executive director, said Resource Recovery was actually waiting for city officials to contact them.

“Our predicament is that we have requested information from them, and we haven’t got anything back from them, which is why we can’t respond,” OConnell said.

On July 20, the city billed Resource Recovery for $2,096,598.31 in back charges, saying the corporation failed to treat its leachate or pay its share of expensive upgrades. The invoice includes $437,254.52 in operating and maintenance costs associated with the excess loading dating to 2005, and $1,659,343.78 for the corporation’s pro-rated share of the city’s costs of upgrading the plant based on a permit change that year. It does not include possible administrative costs.

City officials also say Resource Recovery allowed three businesses in its Johnston industrial park to illegally tie into Cranston’s sewer service. That violation carries penalties of $25,000 per day per business, city officials say.

City Solicitor Evan Kirshenbaum and Councilman Mario Aceto, the committee’s chairman, have said the city tried to negotiate a resolution for the past year, but agency officials stalled in scheduling another meeting. City officials later learned from a newspaper article that Resource Recovery was planning to build a sewer line to connect into a Narragansett Bay Commission sewage intake.

The Providence Journal filed an open records request on July 30 asking for copies of public documents, including the corporation’s annual budget, along with any supporting documentation and description of the corporation’s leachate pretreatment system or payment-in-lieu of pretreatment and any sewer agreement with the city to extend service to the corporation’s industrial park.

The deadline to respond was Sept. 14.

Friday, OConnell said the corporation’s lawyer was reviewing the documents to see which, if any, would be released “because this is a likely lawsuit in the near term.”

Also Thursday night, the council finance committee voted to unseal the minutes of several closed-door discussions on how much Johnson & Wales University is to pay the city in taxes for 12 lots, roughly 20 acres of waterfront land, on its Harborside Campus.

In 2005, the city rezoned the land and amended its Comprehensive Plan to allow the university to build 12 dormitories and a community building and management facility.

The campus, which includes 84 buildings on the Providence side, was built by a nonprofit agency, which leases the buildings to the university. That raised the question of whether the project was tax-exempt.

Rather than seek clarification, the university and the city reached a 20-year agreement that city officials say was never signed, under which the city was to get $95,000 annually for the first 10 years and $104,500 for the next 10 years.

The “memorandum of understanding” called for the city to collect most of that money from the state in the form of a payment in lieu of taxes and Johnson & Wales to cover any difference between the state compensation and the agreed-upon figure. If the property was later deemed to be taxable, the university agreed to pay the appropriate tax.

This year, Finance Director Robert F. Strom said, Cranston received $4.2 million in PILOT money from the state, which includes payment for the 12 university parcels and 20 state lots. Strom estimated the state’s payment for Johnson & Wales was $150,000 to $160,000.

The university land, Strom said, is currently assessed at $4.8 million, and the buildings at $21 million.

marmenta@projo.com

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