DEP’s Order to Halt Wetzel Sludge Upheld
By Ken Ward Jr.
kward@wvgazette.com
A long fight over Northern Panhandle landfill operator Pasquale Mascaro’s efforts to compost out-of-state sewage sludge may be nearing an end.
Late last month, a state appeals board upheld a Department of Environmental Protection order that Mascaro halt sludge-composting operations at his landfill in Wetzel County.
In a 10-page order, the state Environmental Quality Board ruled that DEP was correct when it sent Mascaro a “cease and desist” order in May 2006.
“The DEP order was a straightforward and efficient means of halting operations being conducted under a permit which had been conclusively determined to have no legal basis,” the board said in its ruling.
The board’s ruling was finalized on Dec. 28.
On Tuesday, Attorney General Darrell V. McGraw Jr., who has fought Mascaro for years, issued a news release to publicize the board ruling.
Mascaro, state regulators and local citizens have battled for more than a decade over garbage dumps that the Pennsylvania businessman owns in Brooke and Wetzel counties.
In the early 1990s, Mascaro was among the garbage haulers who proposed to bring millions of tons of out-of-state garbage into West Virginia for disposal. When the state passed laws to try to limit the trash influx, Mascaro repeatedly sued to have those laws declared unconstitutional.
In recent years, Mascaro has fought to be able to haul huge amounts of sludge from municipal sewage treatment plants to his Wetzel and Brooke dumps for composting.
In November 2000, then-Brooke Circuit Judge Fred Risovich II ordered the Brooke composting site permanently closed. The judge cited “foul odors” that floated from the site into nearby neighborhoods on the Hancock-Brooke county border.
Since August 1996, the Wetzel facility was under orders from the DEP not to accept sewage sludge for composting until it cleaned up environmental problems. DEP inspectors found that the operation repeatedly violated the pollution limits for its water discharges, allowing leachate to flow into streams.
In August 2001, DEP officials signed a new settlement intended to allow Mascaro to reopen the Wetzel composting operation.
The following year, chief DEP inspector Mike Zeto attempted to shut the operation down when the company did not meet deadlines for improvements.
But top officials from the Wise administration – including chief of staff Mike Garrison and then-DEP Secretary Michael Callaghan – intervened and gave Mascaro more time to comply.
The latest legal skirmish was over whether Mascaro had a certificate of need from the state Public Service Commission, and whether DEP could issue an environmental permit for the sludge operation without the PSC approval.
In its ruling, the environmental board said that the state Supreme Court has rejected Mascaro’s arguments that his operation possesses a “grandfathered” certificate of need. Also, the board said, the court has upheld the PSC’s denial of a new certificate of need.
Mascaro’s lack of PSC approval, the board said, “removes any basis for a DEP permit allowing” the sludge operation.
Under state law, solid waste facilities need a variety of local and state approvals, including the PSC certificate and a DEP environmental permit. Without the PSC approval, the board said, DEP cannot allow Mascaro to take in sludge.
In its news release, McGraw’s office said that the PSC had ruled against Mascaro, but refused to issue an order requiring the facility to stop operating. On behalf of the local solid waste authority, McGraw sued the PSC before the state Supreme Court, which ordered the facility to shut down in June 2006.
To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call 348- 1702.
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