We quote from a news item below which is about a landfill from which leachate will be trucked out to a sewage wroks for treatment. In most coases this is more expensive than buidling a leachate treatment plant on-site (see the leachate treatment website, and the fact is that these won't be the same vehicles either. Leachate has to be transported in tanker vehicles and the waste come in in waste collection vehicles, and bulk waste trucks!
Read the following quote and you'll understand what I am saying:
Guam's new landfill hums along in Inarajan, but a plan to build a smaller landfill with a waste-to-energy incinerator continues in Santa Rita despite objections from nearby residents.
Nearly 100 people attended a passionate public hearing last night, most objecting to plans for the Guatali Municipal Solid Waste Landfill.
"We don't really need another landfill right now," said Debora Moore. "We already have a brand-new landfill. ... I'm against it and I felt like I should speak out against it."
It was short, simple criticism, but Santa Rita residents clapped and cheered when she finished. It was like that for most of the evening's testimony.
Last night's hearing was held by the Guam Environmental Protection Agency to collect comments. The agency is considering issuing a permit for Guatali landfill plans. The deadline to submit testimony is Friday.
The company behind the project is Guam Resource Recovery Partners, which plans to stockpile waste on leased GovGuam land, then start incinerating the garbage to make energy, according to an impact assessment of the project.
If Guam EPA issues a permit, the Guatali facility will be built on an 87-acre land parcel in Santa Rita, just north of Apra Heights and uphill from the Atantano River, the impact assessment states. About 22 acres of savannah would become waste storage cells, bracketed by small wetlands to the east and west, the assessment states.
The waste stored in the cells is expected to generate about 36,000 gallons of leachate daily. Some will be absorbed by filtering the leachate back through the landfill; the rest would be trucked to the wastewater treatment plant in Hag't'a, the impact assessment states.
That's how the landfill would work, trucking garbage in and trucking leachate out, for the first three to five years, by which time Guam Resource Recovery Partners hopes to have its waste-to-energy incinerator running.
The company's incinerator efforts have been wrapped up in a court battle for about a decade. If Guam Resource Recovery Partners ever gets approval for the facility, it would run for 11 months a year, the assessment states......
....The impact assessment states repeatedly the Guatali landfill is needed to close the Ordot dump, which will improve quality of life on Guam. The document was last revised in January, so it doesn't reflect that the Ordot dump has been closed for almost three months.
That begs the same question that surfaced at the Santa Rita hearing: Does Guam need two landfills?
When asked yesterday about the justification for a second landfill, Guirguis said the island didn't need two landfills. However, Guirguis insists the Guatali proposal -- not the finished landfill in Inarajan --is better for Guam.
Guirguis said the Inarajan landfill will reach its 50-year life expectancy only if GovGuam continues to build more storage cells, expanding the landfill footprint. In contrast, once the Guatali facility starts incinerating waste, it won't need to expand its landfill component, Guirguis said.
Guirguis said the Guatali landfill also is preferable because it will be cheaper than the government landfill. Tipping fees already have been increased.
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