Maintenance concerns officials

Odors from the landfill have diminished during the cleanup.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency nears completion of more than 13 months of cleanup at the Warren Recycling Inc. landfill, local leaders say they're worried about what will happen long term.
They're concerned about who would operate the landfill's leachate treatment system, which has already treated and sent to the city sewer about 13 million gallons of leachate in the six months it has been functioning.
Leachate is water that has come into contact with, and been contaminated by, the landfill's contents, including hydrogen sulfide gas. That gas produces a rotten egg odor. The construction and demolition debris landfill at 300 Martin Luther King Blvd., which opened in 1994, closed at the end of 2004.
Cleaner air
"Residents have had faint odors here and there, nothing like what we used to have" from the landfill, said Debbie Roth, president of Our Lives Count, an advocacy group for the landfill's neighbors.
"Our concern again though is with the leachate removal," she said. If the leachate builds up because the treatment system doesn't continue to operate, "then we would be right back to square one ... We still have concerns about the long-term maintenance."
"We have some concerns as to who's going to be overseeing it," said Kay Anderson, Warren Township trustee. "We just don't want to get back into a public heath hazard again," she said.
Based on air sampling, the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry concluded in November 2003 that exposure to hydrogen sulfide gas was an urgent public health threat to the landfill's neighbors. Symptoms include eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches, nausea, fatigue, shortness of breath and chest pain, the U.S. EPA said.
"Many residents have been sick for years with respiratory problems," Anderson said, adding that the landfill odor forced township police out of the township administration building several times.
Landfill inspections
In a public meeting Tuesday, city Councilman Robert Holmes III, D-4th, asked Mark A. Durno, U.S. EPA on-scene coordinator, who would make sure the leachate treatment system is operated properly. The Ohio EPA and Warren Board of Health have said they will continue to inspect the landfill and ensure that the system operates routinely, Durno replied.
"Even if the leachate treatment system isn't run, I don't believe that you will have odors or hydrogen sulfide being generated in excess that would create risk off-site," Durno said.
"I don't have a lot of faith, especially if that system is not run on a regular basis," said Councilwoman Susan E. Hartman, D-7th, whose ward includes the landfill.
One day a week
Warren Recycling is now operating the leachate treatment system, Durno said, adding that that system should be operated one day a week "for the foreseeable future." The U.S. EPA's presence at the landfill will end by mid-June.
Another aspect of the U.S. EPA's $4 million cleanup was consolidating loose debris and covering it with a clay cap to keep rainwater out of the landfill, draining and filling areas of standing water with clean soil, and grading surrounding land so water would flow away from the landfill and toward a new, large ditch.
Rick Jones, manager of WRI's adjacent garbage transfer station, who has served as WRI's agent in dealings with the U.S. EPA concerning the landfill, declined comment as he left the meeting.