Landfill woes far from over - Times Daily

The importance of avoiding landfill leachate escapes to landfill operators is once again made clear in this article which we found recently, where the problem is all about the release of leachate  into the nearby creek. It shows, yet again, how important it is to ensure that leachate is managed carefully. Which means that the city’s municipal solid waste landfill may be closed to new waste tipping, but it’s far from being off the local radar screen.

Here is an extract from the article:

The Florence City Council could vote tonight to pay its engineering consultant $21,130 to investigate the source of a leachate escape in February that ultimately led to the state issuing a notice of violation.

The contract with Highland Technical Services would also authorize the company to take steps to recover leachate — water polluted with garbage — from the cell from which it originally escaped. If that option is chosen, the cost will increase to $55,640.

The council voted recently to close the landfill to municipal solid waste, leaving the remaining space for construction and demolition debris. The landfill was running out space, and the council deadlocked for months on whether to open a final cell or close the landfill and hire a contractor to haul trash out of state. The latter option was chosen as a temporary emergency measure in December because the current cell filled in early January.

In March, the council voted to extend its contract with Waste Connections, which is operating a transfer station for the city.

The notice of violation from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management cited the release of leachate into nearby Cypress Creek during a rain event. The violation is considered serious, and the notice stated a monetary fine could be imposed.

The council’s 3-3 deadlock was broken when Councilman Sam Pendleton and Council President James Barnhart voted to extend the contract with Waste Connections. Pendleton said the violation convinced him the landfill has problems. Barnhart, who had been concerned with costs, said Waste Connections’ guarantee of a long-term steady price helped sway his decision.

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Old Albion Landfill Oozes Leachate - US

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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Guatali Leachate Raises Sewage Works Discharge Issues - Plus Funny Leachate Drinking Video!

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.

WE HOPE YOU LIKE OUR (UNRELATED) LEACHATE VIDEO BELOW. WE FOUND IT AMUSING!

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.

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Residents oppose Guatali landfill - Pacific Daily News

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.

View the original article here

High water levels hinder leachate pipeline construction project in Caribou area

CARIBOU, Maine — High water levels of the Little Madawaska River have hindered two pipeline construction projects, both literally a stone’s throw from completion.
Standing on the bank off Grimes Mill Road on Sept. 9, Mark Draper watched as water rushed downstream at 917 cubic feet per second — more than 800 cubic feet per second higher than normal based on a U.S. Geological Survey average for the last three years.
“Last year at this time you could walk across this river and not get your feet wet,” said Draper, solid waste director of the Tri-Community Landfill.
Tri-Community Landfill is 175 feet from completing a 2.3-mile pipeline project to connect the landfill to the Caribou Utilities District, where the landfill’s leachate — water that has come into contact with garbage — will be treated.
Until the pipeline is completed, Tri-Community employees will continue hauling the leachate to the CUD one 6,300-gallon truckload at a time.
As Draper explained, CUD didn’t have the capacity to accept Tri-Community’s leachate when the landfill was first built, and there wasn’t a feasible way to pipe the leachate to Fort Fairfield for treatment.
Now that Caribou has the capacity for the leachate, the pipeline will save Tri-Community employees roughly 1,000 trips a year hauling approximately 6 million gallons of leachate.
But nature seemed to have other plans for the project as record-setting precipitation this summer has caused the Little Madawaska River to swell and rage along. Workers with Soderberg Construction considered building a cofferdam to push river water to one side in order to lay two 6-inch pipes across the riverbed — one pipe for daily operations and the other as a backup. But the high, rushing water dampened that plan.
Instead, officials with Tri-Community and Soderberg opted to go with directional drilling under the river — essentially drilling down from one bank, under the river, and over to the opposite bank.
Subcontractors with Enterprise Trenchless Technologies Inc. of Lisbon Falls were on-site Tuesday afternoon for the directional drilling under the river, which will allow the two ends of the pipeline finally to meet after a season of opposing each other from the banks of the Little Madawaska. The project is likely to be completed this week.
Expediting the weather-delayed project by drilling and essentially bypassing the river will cost an estimated $18,000. That cost will be split between the contractor and Tri-Community. The total projected cost of the leachate pipeline project is approximately $1.7 million, which includes engineering, easements for right of way, environmental permits and construction.
What Draper found most frustrating was that the rain not only delayed the project but also added to the amount of leachate that needed to be treated.
But Tri-Community Landfill isn’t the only entity that has been trying in vain to cross the Little Madawaska River this summer; just downstream, the Greater Limestone Water and Sewer District also is just shy of completing a pipeline project. That district is trying to connect to an existing Caribou Utilities District pipeline so its treated waste can reach the Aroostook River.
Limestone Water and Sewer Director Jim Leighton explained that directional drilling isn’t an option for that project because the pipe the district plans to run under the river has a diameter of 21 inches.
Like the Tri-Community project, efforts to build a cofferdam earlier this summer were a wash.
“So now we’re doing the waiting game,” Leighton said.
Since Sept. 6 and 7, when the river was rushing at more than 2,500 cubic feet per second — bearing in mind a gallon of water weighs just more than 8 pounds — the water level has been dropping steadily. At the beginning of this week, the river was “down” to 374 cubic feet per second. Waiting out the weather isn’t a problem for LWSC, as a few weeks’ delay won’t change the project’s cost.
Leighton is confident that the project will find a window this fall.
“This [pipeline under the river] will connect us to the Aroostook River, then it’s just a matter of turning a couple of valves and we’ll be able to start utilizing the pipeline,” Leighton said.
Leighton also pre-emptively clarified that while the Greater Limestone Water and Sewer District is connecting its pipeline with that of the Caribou Utilities District in order to reach the Aroostook River, all of Limestone’s wastewater still will be treated in Limestone — it’s not being transported to Caribou. Rather, LWSD is using the same diffuser pipe as CUD to discharge into the Aroostook River.
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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.

(Video has no connection with the article.)

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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