OLD TOWN – The rotten egg smell that has been plaguing some residents who live near the West Old Town Landfill should soon be eliminated.

Crews from Sargent & Sargent, a general contracting company in Hampden, and RTD Enterprises of Madison on Friday finished installing a synthetic cap and landfill gas collection system that is expected to eliminate the odor.

“They have been able to complete in 10 days what would normally take three months, and they’ve done it perfectly,” said Don Meagher, manager of planning and development for Casella Waste Systems Inc.

Casella is the operator of the Old Town landfill and Pine Tree Landfill in Hampden.

Despite what Meagher says is a speedy track to fixing the problem, the smell has posed a concern and irritation to some residents for more than a month.

“We’ve had a couple of complaints per day, but that doesn’t surprise me,” Meagher said. “We really need to have the whole thing complete to see if it’s really working.”

Old Town City Manager Peggy Daigle said she has continued to receive complaints.

“People are just frustrated,” she said Friday. “Some of them are repeat complainants, but it’s only because [the smell] is getting worse or it’s just not going away.”

For the past month, landfill officials have been working to address the odor problem.

“As nasty as the smell is at this concentration, which I’m going to say based on my nose is somewhere around 6 to 8 parts per billion, you would have to get a concentration 100 times more and exposure for a full working day for it to be a health hazard,” Meagher said.

He said there is no health risk from the odor, but realizes that it is a nuisance.

The landfill slopes have been covered with 3 feet of ash, lime has been added to neutralize the odor, and an odor-neutralizing misting system has been implemented. Chemicals also are being added to trucks that carry leachate to the treatment plant.

“None of that worked really very well, so we then decided we’re going to seal the whole thing up,” Meagher said.

The landfill has not been in full operation since the state Department of Environmental Protection issued the original license.

But test plots to see which ratio of mill sludge, ash and waste must be mixed to create a stable landfill have been created.

Those test plots are the source of the sewerlike odor residents have been complaining about and that process temporarily has been suspended until the odor problem is under control.

A synthetic cap made of 150,000 square feet of impenetrable plastic has been placed over the top of the entire test plot area.

Landfill gas being generated will be trapped beneath the cap, collected in a system of pipes under the cap, and drawn with a vacuumlike suction to a flare where the gas will be burned.

The system, which was fired successfully Friday afternoon, has the ability to burn up to half a million cubic feet of gas per day, Meagher said.

“So we have a lot of capacity to burn a lot of gas,” he said.

A similar but larger gas collection system is used at the Hampden landfill and has proved successful in eliminating the odor produced by landfill gases.

In addition to addressing the odor issue, other projects are in the works at the landfill site.

DEP recently granted Casella final approval to build additional capacity at the site. Construction on what is known as cell three has begun and is expected to be complete by August or September.

“We’re also relocating the entrance to provide some relief to neighbors,” Meagher said. As part of its agreement to ensure property value protection to abutters, Casella has bought a home next to the current entrance and intends to move the access slightly to allow trucks easier, safer access to Interstate 95.

“I think the relocation will make a big improvement,” Meagher said.

The three-way West Old Town Landfill deal among the state, Georgia-Pacific Corp. and Casella was designed to keep G-P’s Old Town paper mill open while addressing the state’s waste disposal problem.

The state bought the landfill site from G-P last year for $26 million and chose Casella to operate it.

DEP approved the project April 9, 2004. Attempts to appeal that decision have been unsuccessful, but continue.