TRUMBULL COUNTY Landfill plans to resume operations

Health and city officials questioned the legality of the license transfer.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Warren Recycling Inc. plans to resume accepting construction and demolition debris at its Martin Luther King Avenue landfill so it can pay the bills, its spokesman says.
Anthony DiCenso III told city health board members at a meeting Wednesday that Warren Hills LLC, which had been leasing the landfill from WRI for more than a year, has exercised an option to terminate the lease.
WRI, which owns the landfill, bought the stock, assets and liabilities from Warren Hills, DiCenso said.
Landfill operations ceased last month after the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency told the facility to stop accepting unrecognizable waste. Warren Hills laid off the bulk of its employees.
Warren Hills will return to the site if an agreement is worked out with the OEPA, the Ohio attorney general's office and the two companies.
OEPA rejected plan
Last month, Warren Hills proposed a plan to OEPA that would close the landfill in four years. That plan was rejected, however. It would have required that the facility be allowed to accept more waste than its permit allows in order to generate revenue.
The parties are awaiting a court hearing on a consent agreement reached among them last year. That agreement was, in part, to settle violations of accepting improper waste at the facility in the late 1990s.
DiCenso said his company continues to truck leachate, liquid waste accumulated at the site, to the city's treatment plant daily. Gas and groundwater monitoring also continues. He estimated those costs at $2,500 per day.
"It's been six weeks since we last accepted any waste," DiCenso said.
WRI hadn't received any compensation for the lease from Warren Hills for nearly two months, he said.
"We're going to begin, at a minimal amount, to accept some waste again," DiCenso said. "At $2,500 a day, we can't continue to not accept any material anymore."
He said the landfill would likely accept 300 yards to 400 yards of material daily, although the license allows 1,500 tons a day.
Concerns
Mayor Michael J. O'Brien and Robert Pinti, deputy health commissioner, questioned whether the license also transferred with the sale.
Pinti said he questions the legality of the license's going from one party to another without EPA approval.
DiCenso said attorneys representing his company and Warren Hills researched the issue and wouldn't have done it if it wasn't legal.
Pinti cautioned DiCenso about unloading any material without EPA's giving the OK.