New EPA Leachate Monitoring Rules Affect Local Landfills

New landfill rules will mean increased costs for old landfills in the US County, and include, five key areas, for a post-closure care period, post-closure care financial assurance, more post-closure care period imonitoring if there are judged to be health or environmental effects, and a procedure to adjust final closure financial assurance.

The full details are given from the Zanesville Post article which descrobes them, below. Please visit the original site:

ZANESVILLE -- The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new rules that would require the state's licensed construction and demolition debris landfills to regularly test groundwater for an expanded number of contaminants.

Two of the state's 55 licensed landfills which would be subject to the new rules are local -- Sidwell Materials' site off of Limestone Valley Road in Newton Township and the County Road 286 landfill in Coshocton County.

Sidwell Materials Asbestos Hazard Evaluation Specialist Drake Prouty said the company will abide by whatever rules and regulations ultimately are set forth by the agency.

He said that EPA representatives visit the landfill at 4620 Limestone Valley Road quarterly and for unannounced spot testing of groundwater at the 9-acre site, and no problems have been found.

A legislative study committee and the EPA proposed tougher regulations regarding water monitoring or leachate at the bottom of landfill sites in 2005, but backed off after officials complained the new regulations would be too expensive to comply with.

That proposal would have allowed for 64 different toxic chemicals to be tested for, instead of the 19 currently required by the EPA. The new proposal expands that number to 77 pollutants which could "leach" in to groundwater supplies, including iron, sulfate, manganese and even toxic adhesives.

Based on the prior study which determined lthat landfill leachate poses a threat to public health and the environment if released to ground water or surface water, and public comments received on the draft rules issued earlier this year, Ohio EPA developed the current proposed rules.

The amended proposed rules focus on five key areas:

- Five-year post-closure care period.

- Post-closure care financial assurance provided by the facility.

- Extension of post-closure care period if there are health or environmental effects.

- A procedure to adjust final closure financial assurance with the issuance of an annual license.

- Monitor landfill eachate at the bottom of the landfill for an established list of contaminants, and if detected, monitor ground water for the detected contaminant.

View the original article here

Dumping water into bay could be Mercury clean-up solution - UpperMichigansSource.com

CMS would filter the water to remove 90 percent of mercury, but some ask if that's enough

PETOSKEY, MI -- CMS Land Company believes they've found a local solution to the Leachate problem at Bay Harbor and East Park, but it's being met with some serious concern.

What to do with the contaminated water from the former Penn-Dixie Cement Plant near Petoskey?

That has been the question, and for four years, the water has been shipped to a deep-well injection site.

But CMS Land Company says something else needs to be done, and they believe they've found the solution.

But this solution could mean small quantities of Mercury being diluted into the Great Lakes.

For five years it has worked like this...collect the run-off water that contains mercury from the contaminated land underneath Bay Harbor and East Park, neutralize it in this building, and then ship the result, an average of 150-thousand gallons per day, to a deep-injection well-site more than 50 miles away to Johannesburg.  C-M-S Land Company has been in charge, and now, they say it's their belief they've found a better *local solution to take care of the local problem.

"We're proposing to build a $4 million state-of-the-art facility to treat the water that we collect here using the best available technology and then release that water back to Lake Michigan," said CMS Land Company Area Manager Tim Petrosky.

The main contaminant of concern is Mercury.  The facility will remove 90 percent or more from the water.  That water would then be mixed with clean water to meet environmental criteria before going back in the lake.

"The requirements are very, very stringent, in fact, the release criteria for mercury to the lake is 1.3 parts per trillion," said Petrosky.

Here's an analogy of the parts per trillion guideline.  It'd be like placing one drop of contaminated liquid in all of the water of 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools combined.

But Doctor Grenetta Thomassey of the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council says this amount *may seem benign...it could be detrimental, which is why the council doesn't support this solution.

“You mix it with water, and let it go into Little Traverse Bay, and then you come back and you mix it with water, and let it go into Little Traverse Bay, and basically what you got is that exact same amount of mercury all ending up in Little Traverse Bay, so we're not in favor of that, no," said Thomassey.

CMS has submitted an application to the Department of Natural Resources and Environment. 

“We look really carefully at mercury because it is one of the few contaminants that is known as a bio-cumulative compound, meaning that it builds up in the environment over a period of time, so we look at that very carefully," said Bob Wagner, the Lake Huron Regional Director of the DNRE.

“We think it's the best solution to environmental, safety, and economic perspective," said Petrosky.

“This is a bad deal.  So we are not interested in anything going into Little Traverse Bay if it can be prevented," said Thomassee.

The DNRE will review the application and if the proposed treatment meets the guidelines, they'll issue a draft permit sometime in October or November.  After that, they'll seek public comment.

View the original article here