LEACHATE EPA won't treat water at current fee

Two council members said they would support a one-time cost reduction.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A U.S. EPA representative told city council members his agency can't decontaminate 40 to 60 million gallons of water at the Warren Hills landfill unless the city lowers its rate for accepting the water in its sanitary sewer system.
"Without the fee being reduced, we do not have the budget to continue our current operations," said Mark A. Durno, the U.S. EPA's on-scene coordinator at the landfill, where the federal EPA is supervising a $2.7 million cleanup.
During a Tuesday meeting of council's sewer committee, Councilwoman Susan E. Hartman, D-7th, and Councilman Robert Holmes III, D-4th, said they'd support reducing the city's fee from 3 cents a gallon to seven-tenths of a cent per gallon if the change would be a one-time reduction limited to the U.S. EPA's Warren Hills cleanup.
Under legislation already introduced in council, the reduced rate would apply, provided the water contaminated by the landfill's contents, known as leachate, has been pre-treated to remove all hydrogen sulfide before it enters the sewer system. The construction and demolition debris landfill closed at the end of last year.
Durno said construction of the on-site pre-treatment plant for the leachate at the landfill is completed, and the U.S. EPA is ready to begin pre-treating the leachate.
If the U.S. EPA had to pay the 3-cent-a-gallon sewer rate for the leachate, it would have to spend $1.3 million to $1.8 million just in sewer use fees, Durno said. That price is "far too high," he said.
'Public health hazard'
Hydrogen sulfide is a flammable, corrosive and toxic gas with a rotten egg odor that emanates from putrefying matter.
The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry recently released a study that linked hydrogen sulfide exposures with health symptoms among the landfill's neighbors. Eye irritation and breathing problems increased as people spent more time near the landfill, the study found. The agency has declared the landfill "an urgent public health hazard."
"We need to get it done because these people have suffered enough," Holmes said of the landfill cleanup.
Other concerns
In addition to a one-time-only reduction, Hartman asked for a provision that, if the landfill reopens at any time in the next 25 years, the new operator would have to pay the city the difference between the 3 cents and seven-tenths of a cent per gallon for the water the EPA would send to the sewer.
But Katharina Snyder, an Ohio EPA engineer, said the state has a moratorium on new landfill licenses and, even if licenses were available, Warren Hills would have to fulfill a long list of conditions before reopening.
"I understand the concerns of city council. I'm sure that they are going to take the action that's necessary to get legislation in that would be successful in getting this leachate out of there. It is time-critical, so I'm hoping they respond fairly quickly," said Debbie Roth, president of Our Lives Count, an advocacy group for the landfill's neighbors, who spoke after the meeting.