EPA Wants Firebreak at Landfill: Owner of Stark Site Says Starting Project Would Trigger Extreme Odors
By Bob Downing, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio
Feb. 7–The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency wants a new firebreak constructed at Countywide Recycling & Disposal Facility, a move that raises the specter of offensive odors for neighbors in southern Stark and northern Tuscarawas counties.
The EPA proposal would require digging down about 70 feet into buried trash to keep underground fires from spreading in the 258-acre landfill in Stark County’s Pike Township.
The plan would create a new barrier between the landfill’s original 88 acres, where fires and odors have occurred for two years, and the new 170-acre landfill expansion.
The state’s proposal drew a cool reception from Republic Services Inc., the Florida-based company that owns and operates Countywide, which takes in about half of Summit County’s trash.
The time to build such a project was December through February in order to minimize odors and “that window has passed,” company spokesman Will Flower said.
The company is opposed to beginning the project now and triggering “extreme odors,” he said.
Flower also questioned whether the firebreak is needed. The company feels that the chemical reactions in the landfill are slowing down and the problem may be decreasing.
Republic Services has requested an immediate meeting with the two agencies to review what’s happening at the landfill and what remedies are necessary before any decisions are made, Flower said.
The Ohio EPA announced its proposal Wednesday in a letter to the U.S. EPA.
Ohio EPA Director Chris Korleski wrote that the state wants the federal EPA to mobilize a contractor to build the firebreak as quickly as possible or to allow Republic Services to build the firebreak — a soil-rock berm — under federal supervision.
Separation urged
The two agencies agree that a firebreak is needed to separate Cells 5A/5B in the older section from Cell 7 in the newer area, Korleski said.
The two areas connect underground and the fear is that the fires being triggered by a chemical reaction involving aluminum wastes could spread into the newer cell.
Korleski said he was inclined to order Countywide to build the firebreak.
“However, my staff informs me that this work would require technical resources which are currently not at our disposal,” he wrote. “Consequently, we would need to assemble these resources. But in doing so, we would lose precious time in moving to install the firebreak promptly and during the winter, if at all possible in order to lessen the impacts of odor.”
That’s why he is seeking federal help on the firebreak, along with the federal agency’s expertise in landfill excavations, Korleski said.
Ohio EPA spokesman Mike Settles said his agency has been reviewing the firebreak issue for months, analyzing data and trying to determine if such a project was feasible and needed.
Karen Thompson, a spokeswoman in the U.S. EPA’s Chicago regional office, said the federal agency will assess what the best approach might be.
The possibility of additional odors being generated by the excavation of waste for the firebreak worried Dick Harvey of Bolivar, head of the grass-roots group Club 3000, which has been fighting Countywide.
“I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. I’ve got mixed emotions,” he said. ” . . . Odors would be bad, but we strongly feel that Cell 7 should be isolated to keep the problems from spreading.”
Ohio’s plan is very similar to a proposal offered last October by Republic Services.
SCS Engineers, a consultant for the company, said it would take two to four months to dig up 385,000 cubic yards of trash — enough waste to nearly fill Akron’s Rubber Bowl twice — to create a firebreak 950 feet long with resulting slope reconstructions.
“It is anticipated that odors will be created for the duration of this project,” the consultant’s report said.
Building a firebreak
In building the firebreak, the two feet of soil covering the trash would be removed and the buried trash would be moved to other landfill areas in strips 15 to 18 feet deep.
Countywide would try to minimize odors by reburying the trash as quickly as possible and by using the landfill’s existing odor-neutralization system and portable misting systems that could be moved into affected areas.
SCS said the excavation would not be likely to uncover any aluminum dross, the material that triggered the fires when it came in contact with landfill liquids.
But giant fabric bags of aluminum baghouse dust and other aluminum wastes likely would have to be moved during the excavation, the company said.
The greatest threat in the project is a landfill gas fire and explosions, the company said.
Republic Services made its proposal in October and suggested that the firebreak be built over the winter to minimize odor problems. But the Ohio EPA never approved the project.
At that time, the company said it was convinced that the fires had not spread into Cell 7.
The Ohio EPA had earlier ordered a firebreak to be built between Cells 8A and 8B at the northern edge of the landfill.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
—–
To see more of the Akron Beacon Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.ohio.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
NYSE:RSG,