Landfill Beset by Leachate Problems Seeks Police Escort - India

Not knowing the issues here, this article is hard to understand. It does not actually state why a police escort is sought, but presumably the local residents are so fed up with the landfill operator over bad-neighbour issues that there could be trouble for the contractors bringing in materials to remedy the problem. This seems crazy. If there are problems and the deliveries will reduce them the local people should allow the work to go ahead. Read the artcle below and visit the original web site by following the lick at the bottom of the page:

As part of resuming work on the sanitary landfill inside the Vilappilsala solid waste treatment plant, the City Corporation has requested the Police Department to provide escort for transporting the clay required for lining the various layers of the landfill.

According to officials, around 300 loads of clay will be required for layering the landfill which is being constructed to dispose of the garbage rejects that have accumulated inside the plant over the years.

Transportation of clay to the Vilappilsala plant would commence on February 13 and would continue for nearly a week, Deputy Mayor G. Happykumar said.

“Urban Affairs Minister P.K. Kunhalikutty had the other day convened a meeting of contractors who have taken up works of sanitary landfill and leachate treatment plant inside the plant and officials of the Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project (KSUDP), the nodal agency for the projects. At the meeting, it was decided to immediately resume the pending work in the plant as per the directive of the High Court. As per this, we are resuming the work on the sanitary landfill. Work on the leachate treatment plant will be resumed soon,” Mr Happykumar said.

Corporation health officer D. Sreekumar said that the sanitary landfill would have the capacity of 95 tonnes of garbage rejects a day for seven years. The Rs.6 crore project was being funded by the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

Mr. Happykumar said that construction of sanitary landfill and leachate teratment plant would be completed by March-April. “Whether the plant will be closed in the future or not, completion of these two project is crucial to combat the environment pollution in the plant. Both the accumulated rejects as well as leachate seeping from it will have to be properly treated, even if the government decided to decommission the plant,'' he said.

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Vilappilsala Capacity of garbage plant inadequate

Leachate from yard frequently reaches the Karamana river

The garbage plant at Vilappilsala can effectively process only a portion of the solid waste that reaches the yard from the capital city, a report submitted by the Kerala State Pollution Control Board (PCB) to the High Court of Kerala has observed.

The plant has the capacity to process only 90 tonnes of solid waste a day.

The average quantity of waste reaching the 46-acre plant daily, until it was shut down on December 21, 2011, was around 203 tonnes, of which 114 tonnes was biodegradable waste, according to the report.

PCB environmental engineer K.R. Santhoshkumar and advocate commission K. Meera were tasked by the High Court to inspect the plant and report the facilities there.

The report further observed that the leachate flowing from two uncapped landfills inside the plant frequently reached the Karamana river through the Meenambally canal, causing river water pollution.

Although the leachate is collected in temporary ponds and treated using alum, lime and bleaching powder, these temporary measures were inadequate to check the pollution caused by the leachate.

The PCB has in its report directed the City Corporation to commission the permanent leachate treatment plant under construction inside the plant within 60 days.

The board has recommended the construction of a dike between the landfills and the stream to prevent flow of leachate into the river.In order to control the stench emanating from the windrow composts in the plant, the PCB has recommended frequent turning of windrows or providing forced aeration. As of now the windrows are turned every five days.

Another recommendation to control the stench was providing sufficient ventilation by providing adequate number of air blowers and bio-filters.

The PCB report also makes a set of recommendations for maintaining the general hygienic conditions inside the plant.

Providing a 100 meter buffer zone around the periphery of the plant is among these.

Ensuring source level segregation of plastic and biodegradable waste and transporting garbage to the plant in covered vehicles with leachate collection facility are among the other recommendations.

The PCB report has directed the Corporation to complete all the recommended modifications at the Vilappilsala plant within 60 days.

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Vilappilsala Leachate Treatment by Biomethanation Bound to Fail Long-Term

Existing leachate lagoon - where is the liner?

Nepal is so isolated in so many things, and presumably unable to engage top international advice, that it should engender sympathy for their struggle. Here is another example of that in the area of leachate treatment. They are intending to use Leachate Treatment by Biomethanation, which of course long term won't result in a leachate which is low enough in ammoniacal nitrogen to discharge safely either into a watercourse or even into a sewage works for further treatment. Plus, it won't protect their water supplies at all.

In any event if they have a lined landfill they will get Leachate Treatment by Biomethanation free, within the landfilled waste. They should be collecting the much larger yield of landfill gas from the landfill itself anyway, and if CDM is resurrected, they should be able to get Carbon Credits for that landfill gas to build their LFG extraction project.

They will in the end realise that they must treat their leachate aerobically in order to reduce the highly toxic ammonia component, and although biomethanation is fine if it. In order that you can follow this story I have quoted most of the article below. But, do follow the original article link below for the full story:

The agitation against the Vilappilsala solid waste treatment plant heads to another deadlock, the city Corporation is on a last-minute bid to operationalise a Leachate Treatment Plant (LTP) under construction there.
Leachate from the plant seeping into the nearby Meenambally canal and the resulting ground water pollution in the area has been among the main causes of concern for people of Vilappil panchayat and the Vilappilsala Janakeeya Samithi.
Despite the intensifying agitation and interventions by several authorities, including the Ombudsman for Local Self Government Institutions, the city Corporation has not been able to complete the work on LTP, more than a year after its deadline.
Apart from the 3,500-metre-cube collection tank and anaerobic pond, the construction of six other component tanks of the LTP is yet to be completed. However, instead of waiting for the completion of the whole project, the Corporation is now trying to direct and store leachate in the completed collection tank as a temporary measure to tackle water pollution.
On Monday, a team of engineers and officials from the Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project (KSUDP) Project Implementation Unit of the Corporation visited the plant to assess how leachate from the accumulated garbage and various other points in the plant can be channelled into the LTP collection tank.
“Construction of the collection tank is over and leachate can now be stored in this tank. From here, it will be directed to the anaerobic pond where bio-methanation of the liquid will take place. The bio-filters in the pond will be installed within a week by which time we will also be laying pipes to channel leachate to the collection tank,” a project engineer said.
He said the bio-methanation process in the anaerobic pond, in its full capacity, will take around 70 days within which period other works on the leachate treatment plant would also be completed.
The LTP coming up at Vilappilsala follows a seven-step treatment method at the end of which the Biological Oxygen Demand in the waste discharge will be brought down to 30 mg per litre from 5,000 mg per litre. Corporation officials now say that the leachate treatment plant will be made fully operational by January, 2012. “Before that, we will solve the issue of water pollution,” said Deputy Mayor G. Happy Kumar.

While Leachate Treatment by Biomethanation will certainly reduce the Biological Oxygen Demand it won't reduce the ammoniacla nitrogen which is essential to remove to below 5 mg/l, and 7 steps seems excessively complicated for any leachate treatment plant. At some point they will need a simple SBR aeration leachate treatment plant of the type I have designed more than 30. (See http://leachate.co.uk for more information.)

Corporation Health Officer D. Sreekumar said the leachate treatment plant coming up at Vilappilsala would only be the second such plant in the country. “Nashik is the only municipality in the country to have an LTP of this magnitude and capacity. The lack of prior experience was also a reason for delay,” he said.

Keywords: Leachate treatment, leachate Treatment by Biomaethanation, agitation, solid waste treatment plant
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