Landfill Operator Works to Solve Odor Issue

By AIMEE DOLLOFF; OF THE NEWS STAFF

OLD TOWN – Depending on where you stand at the West Old Town Landfill, the air smells either crisp and clean or foul like rotten eggs.

Officials with Casella Waste Systems Inc., the landfill operator, say, however, that they’re working hard to fix the odor issue and want to do a better job at communicating what has been and is being done to control the problem, as well as what can be expected in the future.

That was the purpose of the letter Casella sent Friday to Alton and Old Town residents affected by the odor issue.

“It’s something [Casella] wanted to do to show people some empathy with their issues,” Casella’s attorney, Chris Jackson of Portland, said Friday.

“We’ve really been slowed down a lot on what we’ve been trying to do this spring, summer and fall,” Don Meagher, Casella’s manager of planning and development, said Monday.

Meagher gave a tour of the landfill, which looks tidy from the perimeter, with much of the site covered by impenetrable plastic and temporary soil caps. It’s only from the air and a small sliver on the southwest side that a visitor can see the extent of the mixing of sludge and waste that’s taking place.

When Casella took over the site from Georgia-Pacific in Old Town in 2004, it was left with 400,000 tons of mill sludge that gets “soupy” when it freezes and thaws, making it unstable. The extensive amounts of rain lately also have contributed to the problem.

To stabilize the waste, Casella is mixing it with a combination of municipal solid waste, construction and demolition debris, ash, and front end processing residue.

The sludge is dug up, moved, and taken to a different area where it is mixed with other waste.

“That all has the potential for odor,” Meagher said.

Residents have been complaining about the smell for months, but as Casella works to decrease the odor, the number of complaints is diminishing, he said.

The mixing process is projected to be completed by June 2006.

“The pace of the mixing program is limited by the availability of other waste for mixing,” Casella wrote in the letter to residents. Meagher noted Monday that they’re limited to using in-state waste, because the West Old Town site isn’t permitted to accept out-of- state waste.

In an effort to reduce the odor, Casella has put a synthetic, impenetrable cap on one portion of Cell Two and connected a series of pipes inside the waste to a methane gas torch. A landfill cell refers to a specific area of the site. There are three cells at the West Old Town Landfill.

The methane torch burns off the hydrogen sulfide that causes the rotten-egg odor.

The remainder of Cell Two, which is covered with a temporary cap made of soil and a biodegradable mesh, is expected to be tied into the torch system by the end of the month, so the foul odor should continue to dissipate.

Another step the company is taking to reduce odor is to replace the open leachate lagoon with an aboveground leachate storage tank to collect untreated wastewater from the landfill. The 1 million gallon tank, which looks like a small water tower, has been built and is expected to be operational by the end of November.

“Casella Waste Systems recognizes that odor from the West Old Town Landfill has been a significant issue for the residents of Old Town and Alton over the past year. We apologize for this,” the letter reads. “We are, and have been, absolutely committed to providing all of the resources necessary to resolve this issue.”