DEP orders Greenville to close its landfill

GREENVILLE – Because of noncompliance with the state’s Solid Waste Management Regulations, the Department of Environmental Protection has essentially told town officials that the Greenville landfill must be closed.

Karen Knuuti of the DEP said the town must file a landfill closing plan within six months with the intent that the facility will be closed, Town Manager John Simko told selectmen on Wednesday.

Town officials have been working with the private contractor they hired to manage the landfill to correct the problems, which include groundwater contamination, according to Simko. The landfill was expected to remain open until 2008.

In her notice of violation dated Sept. 7, Knuuti wrote that the landfill has had “too many problems for too long, and groundwater quality has not improved significantly.”

In a letter to Knuuti approved by selectmen on Wednesday, Simko noted that the town is committed to bringing the landfill into compliance. He wrote that board members met with the landfill operator on July 29 to view the deficiencies.

From that meeting, the board established an aggressive timetable for the contractor to correct the deficiencies, many of which have since been addressed.

If the landfill is closed, the town would need to build a transfer station and then truck the compacted garbage to a licensed facility where a tipping fee would be charged. The tipping fee alone could cost about $200,000 a year, Simko said.

The town would not only incur those costs, but the costs of closing the landfill as well, he said. Such a move could have a “ruinous effect on the town’s finances,” he said.

“This is severe action,” Simko told selectmen.

Simko hopes to convince DEP officials to allow the town to continue to use of the landfill until a transfer station is constructed.

He said the town could offer some solutions such as covering the sides of the landfill with plastic to limit more drastically the groundwater penetration into the pile and to develop a tarp system for the active portion of the landfill.