Landfill receives 2007 license
By Bob Downing
The Akron Beacon Journal
PLAIN TWP - The Stark County Health Department voted Wednesday to approve a 2007 license for a landfill plagued by fires and odor problems in southern Stark County.
With little discussion and following a 46-minute report from Health Commissioner William Franks, the board of health commissioners approved the required permit for the Countywide Recycling & Disposal Facility in Pike Township.
Franks said it cannot be proven that the landfill is a threat to public health or the environment.
The landfill created odors that are a nuisance, but those odors never turned into a health threat, he said.
Many of the problems at Countywide will be corrected under a negotiated agreement with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, he said, and the company's five other Ohio facilities are in substantial compliance with regulations.
The threat and compliance issues are the key areas on which Franks said he is authorized to judge the landfill.
The health board action resolves a major problem for Republic Waste Services of Ohio, which owns and operates the 258-acre landfill. The landfill had been operating under an extension of its 2006 license.
The company previously signed an agreement with the EPA to eliminate the odors and to douse underground fires triggered by buried aluminum wastes coming into contact with liquids.
The plan for doing so must be submitted to the EPA by May 29. The company also agreed to pay a $1 million fine and must determine the integrity of the landfill's synthetic liner and its gas-extraction wells.
Wednesday's decision pleased the company but displeased neighbors of the landfill.
"It was a very thorough and fair hearing... and we're obviously pleased,'' said landfill manager Tom Vandersall.
Will Flower, a spokesman for Florida-based Republic Services Inc., the parent company of Republic Waste Services of Ohio, said the permit from the county should be based on the company's day-to-day operations and not on the fire and odor problems.
He said the company would continue working with the EPA to resolve those problems.
That will cost Countywide $22 million in added expenses and lost landfill space, Flower said. That's in addition to about $4 million that the company spent in 2006 to battle the odor problems that have plagued residents in southern Stark and northern Tuscarawas counties.
Dick Harvey, head of Club 3000, the grass-roots group that has been fighting the landfill, wasn't surprised by the health board's decision, but he was disappointed.
"It's not in compliance,'' Harvey said. "It hasn't been in compliance for a year.... Yet it gets its license and that troubles us. That's not right.''
Club 3000 officials are troubled that evidence it collected of violations of environmental rules was ignored or overlooked, said group spokesman Tom O'Dell.
And Tuscarawas County Commissioners Chris Abbuhl and Kerry Metzger, both landfill critics, said they were unhappy with the process followed by the Stark County Health Department.
It is hard to have confidence in Franks' decision because the public doesn't really know what evidence he collected or heard in his closed-door hearings that led to his recommendation, Metzger said.
"It's not open... and it's difficult to be comfortable in the decision-making process,'' he said.
Four experts retained by the Ohio EPA to help analyze the company's plans have visited the landfill since May 1.
They are landfill stability expertDr. Timothy Stark, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois; Rick Thomas, an expert on coal mine fires with the Environmental Risk Management Consulting Corp. in Lexington, Ky.; Carl E. Heltzel, an expert on landfill chemistry from Washington, D.C., and Vytenis Babrauskas, president of Fire Science and Technology Inc. of Issaquah, Wash.
In addition, the EPA is consulting with Todd Thalhamer, a California-based expert on landfill fires; fire expert Tony Sperling, president of Sperling Hansen Associates of North Vancouver, British Columbia; and federal fire chemist William Pitts of the Building and Fire Research Lab at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaitherbsurg, Md.
The Akron Beacon Journal
PLAIN TWP - The Stark County Health Department voted Wednesday to approve a 2007 license for a landfill plagued by fires and odor problems in southern Stark County.
With little discussion and following a 46-minute report from Health Commissioner William Franks, the board of health commissioners approved the required permit for the Countywide Recycling & Disposal Facility in Pike Township.
Franks said it cannot be proven that the landfill is a threat to public health or the environment.
The landfill created odors that are a nuisance, but those odors never turned into a health threat, he said.
Many of the problems at Countywide will be corrected under a negotiated agreement with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, he said, and the company's five other Ohio facilities are in substantial compliance with regulations.
The threat and compliance issues are the key areas on which Franks said he is authorized to judge the landfill.
The health board action resolves a major problem for Republic Waste Services of Ohio, which owns and operates the 258-acre landfill. The landfill had been operating under an extension of its 2006 license.
The company previously signed an agreement with the EPA to eliminate the odors and to douse underground fires triggered by buried aluminum wastes coming into contact with liquids.
The plan for doing so must be submitted to the EPA by May 29. The company also agreed to pay a $1 million fine and must determine the integrity of the landfill's synthetic liner and its gas-extraction wells.
Wednesday's decision pleased the company but displeased neighbors of the landfill.
"It was a very thorough and fair hearing... and we're obviously pleased,'' said landfill manager Tom Vandersall.
Will Flower, a spokesman for Florida-based Republic Services Inc., the parent company of Republic Waste Services of Ohio, said the permit from the county should be based on the company's day-to-day operations and not on the fire and odor problems.
He said the company would continue working with the EPA to resolve those problems.
That will cost Countywide $22 million in added expenses and lost landfill space, Flower said. That's in addition to about $4 million that the company spent in 2006 to battle the odor problems that have plagued residents in southern Stark and northern Tuscarawas counties.
Dick Harvey, head of Club 3000, the grass-roots group that has been fighting the landfill, wasn't surprised by the health board's decision, but he was disappointed.
"It's not in compliance,'' Harvey said. "It hasn't been in compliance for a year.... Yet it gets its license and that troubles us. That's not right.''
Club 3000 officials are troubled that evidence it collected of violations of environmental rules was ignored or overlooked, said group spokesman Tom O'Dell.
And Tuscarawas County Commissioners Chris Abbuhl and Kerry Metzger, both landfill critics, said they were unhappy with the process followed by the Stark County Health Department.
It is hard to have confidence in Franks' decision because the public doesn't really know what evidence he collected or heard in his closed-door hearings that led to his recommendation, Metzger said.
"It's not open... and it's difficult to be comfortable in the decision-making process,'' he said.
Four experts retained by the Ohio EPA to help analyze the company's plans have visited the landfill since May 1.
They are landfill stability expertDr. Timothy Stark, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois; Rick Thomas, an expert on coal mine fires with the Environmental Risk Management Consulting Corp. in Lexington, Ky.; Carl E. Heltzel, an expert on landfill chemistry from Washington, D.C., and Vytenis Babrauskas, president of Fire Science and Technology Inc. of Issaquah, Wash.
In addition, the EPA is consulting with Todd Thalhamer, a California-based expert on landfill fires; fire expert Tony Sperling, president of Sperling Hansen Associates of North Vancouver, British Columbia; and federal fire chemist William Pitts of the Building and Fire Research Lab at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaitherbsurg, Md.
