DEP decried for ‘double standard’

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Not too long ago, the state needed all the landfill space it could find.

Now, after spending $26 million to buy a landfill in Old Town, the state appears to some municipal officials to be exhibiting what they term a double standard: toughening up on other landfills and water quality enforcement.

“Now that the state has capacity – guess what?” said Shawn Small of Civil Engineering Services Inc., whose firm represents several Maine communities.

Small can tick off a list of places where, he said, the state has recently sought action:

The landfill for Carratunk, Forks and West Forks was asked for a closing plan, Greenville received a notice of violation and a request for a closing plan, Dover-Foxcroft was told it may not be able to construct the second phase of its demolition debris landfill because of groundwater contamination, and Presque Isle received a notice for a closing plan for its landfill.

There has been little room for talk about corrective actions and assessment monitoring, Small said.

“That position is outlandish,” said state Environmental Protection Commissioner David Littell. He said there would be no advantage to closing the smaller facilities unless they were not being properly run.

He said the state’s policy is to encourage state and municipal ownership of solid waste facilities.

A perceived double standard is at the heart of the future operation of the Greenville landfill.

“I think the biggest issue for us is the groundwater quality double standard for different types of solid waste systems,” said John Simko, Greenville town manager.

“Some have no tolerance allowed, like landfills, and some have a ‘license to pollute to tolerable levels,’ such as sanitary district spray fields,” Simko said in a recent interview.

He said this appears to present an unrealistic standard for landfills to meet.

“We can meet the more realistic standard other solid waste systems have to meet, and we would like to have the opportunity to try to remain compliant to these reasonable standards,” he said.

Small said he believes DEP has, in essence, created a stricter standard for the amount of pollution that may enter the environment from landfills and transfer stations than it has for a sanitary district’s spraying field and similar operations.

While the standard, which has been around since 1986, gives DEP the ability to close essentially any solid waste facility at any time, it has not been used to close landfills in the past 10 to 15 years, Small said.

Instead, DEP has worked with communities to improve their operations.

That changed last year, he said.

The state bought the West Old Town landfill site from papermaker Georgia-Pacific Corp. Now named the Juniper Ridge Landfill, it became the first state-owned facility of its type. The deal was designed to keep G-P’s Old Town mill open while addressing Maine’s growing solid waste problem.

The view of some of Small’s clients – those who operate small landfills and demolition debris facilities – is that the pollution standard was not being enforced until the state established the West Old Town project, Small said.

It has been DEP’s objective to minimize the number of solid waste landfills in the state, so it is easier for the state to regulate a few large facilities rather than a number of small facilities, he said.

As for the perceived double standard, DEP’s Littell said there is a huge difference between a spray irrigation system and a landfill. It is possible to close the spigots to stop the fluids in an irrigation system, but you can’t stop and dig up a landfill if groundwater is being contaminated, he said.

The issue was raised earlier this month in Augusta when the rules and their effect on the future of Greenville’s landfill were discussed. Attending the meeting were Greenville officials, state representatives, Small and DEP officials, including Littell.

Small said CES monitors groundwater for Greenville, CFWF, Dover-Foxcroft and Presque Isle, and none of these facilities violates Environmental Protection Agency’s compliance standards. Even at the landfill edge, most of the contamination measured at these facilities does not exceed either Maine’s primary drinking water standards or EPA’s groundwater protection standards, he said.

But Small argues that they can’t comply with DEP regulations.

While Presque Isle did receive a notice for a cap or closure, City Manager Tom Stevens said Thursday that the letter was withdrawn by DEP and discussions are “ongoing” about the future of the city’s landfill.

It is the lack of clarity of the rules that bothers Dover-Foxcroft Town Manager Jack Clukey. DEP needs to clarify the rules so “we can know what the performance standards are,” he said Monday.

Simko said that if Greenville’s landfill were closed, the town’s annual budget would increase $150,000 to $250,000 a year for the next 12 to 15 years. If corrective actions could be made, the annual costs would go up less than $50,000 a year, he said.

“If these standards were reduced to the federal requirements, as they are for liquid waste spreading such as sanitary district spray fields, the town would easily meet these standards,” he said. “If we do not change this standard, no corrective action we implement short of landfill closure will bring us into compliance.”

Greenville officials want to implement corrective actions to stop the groundwater contamination. Among them: placing a polymembrane liner on top of the waste pile. The town hopes such measures would allow the continued operation of the landfill while planning for the construction of a transfer station. The permitted licensed landfill has about 30 years in its life span.

The town should be given time to develop a transfer station and to implement the corrective actions, then begin an evaluation period of those corrective actions, Simko said. If the evaluation shows the landfill is in compliance with groundwater rules, then the town should be allowed to continue its landfill operation as a depository for municipal solid waste from the new transfer station, he said.

Littell said Greenville officials were told the department will give them some flexibility. He said DEP will look at the suggested corrective measures to see if they are reasonable. If they are, time will be given to see if they work. If the groundwater isn’t cleaned up, the town will have to close the landfill eventually, he said.