New study determines states offer inadequate coal ash protection
http://www.tnonline.com/2011/aug/25/new-study-determines-states-offer-inadequate-coal-ash-protection
Thursday, August 25, 2011
A new study finds that state regulations regarding coal ash disposal are inadequate to protect public health and drinking water supplies for nearby communities. The information comes as federal regulations – the first of their kind – are under attack by a hostile Congress bent on derailing any effort to ensure strong, federally enforceable safeguards for coal ash, America’s second largest industrial waste stream.
Earthjustice and Appalachian Mountain Advocates (formerly the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment) released “State of Failure: How states fail to protect our health and drinking water from toxic coal ash,” a review of state regulations in 37 states, which together comprise over 98 percent of all coal ash generated nationally. The study highlights the lack of state-based regulations for coal ash disposal and points to the 12 worst states when it comes to coal ash dumping: Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina and Virginia.
There are currently nearly 700 coal ash ponds and hundreds of coal ash landfills in the U.S., most of which operate without adequate liners and water quality monitoring, and have been operating as such for decades. Most states do not require coal ash dumps to employ the most basic safeguards required at landfills for household garbage.
State of Failure includes detailed information on basic disposal safeguards, such as groundwater monitoring, liners, isolation of ash from the water table, and financial assurance requirements in 37 states where coal ash is currently generated and disposed.
Coal ash is the toxic remains of coal-fired power plants; enough is generated each year to fill train cars stretching from the North Pole to the South Pole. The ash contains toxic metals, including arsenic, hexavalent chromium, lead, mercury, and selenium. Coal ash is commonly dumped into unlined and unmonitored ponds and landfills. There are well over a hundred documented sites where coal ash has contaminated drinking water or surface water.
The EPA is currently considering a federal proposal to regulate coal ash that includes two options: the first option would classify coal ash as hazardous waste, requiring water quality monitoring, liners and the phase out of dangerous “wet” storage of coal ash, such as the pond that collapsed in Kingston, Tennessee in 2008. The second option would continue to allow states to inadequately regulate coal ash by establishing only guidelines that states are free to ignore. Within the industry, coal ash generators support the weaker option. The EPA, under pressure from industry, has postponed finalizing the coal ash standard until 2012.
But coal ash allies in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives are not content with delay. Two bills currently moving through the House seek to undermine any efforts by the EPA to set federal enforceable safeguards for coal ash disposal. Both bills require EPA to let the states – and the states alone – decide how to regulate ash, with little federal oversight.
“This report proves unequivocally that state programs, without federal mandates or oversight, are a recipe for disaster when it comes to protecting our health and our environment,” said Lisa Evans, senior legislative counsel at Earthjustice and a co-author of the study. “Strong, federally enforceable safeguards are needed to guarantee that our drinking water remains free of arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxic metals found in coal ash. The myth that states are doing a good job protecting Americans from coal ash is busted.”
“The problem with relying on state regulations is that they are not designed for the unique problems of coal ash generally and coal ash impoundments particularly,” said Mike Becher, the Equal Justice Works Fellow at Appalachian Mountain Advocates. “While many coal ash impoundments are regulated by state dam safety programs, these programs were developed to deal with dams holding back water, not toxic substances. State solid waste programs, on the other hand, are not used to dealing with large impoundments and the threat of a catastrophic dam failure like the one seen in Tennessee in 2008.”
State may limit drilling byproduct from being spread on farms
Pennsylvania is seeking to limit the use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer on farmers’ fields if the sludge comes from sewer plants that treat wastewater from natural gas drilling.
Environmental regulators’ concerns about the sludge were highlighted in a New York Times article on Friday that described the risks of radioactive contaminants in the drilling wastewater concentrating in the sludge during treatment. The sludge, also called biosolids, is sometimes sold or given away to farmers and gardeners as fertilizer if it meets certain standards for pathogens and metals.
The Times article quotes from a transcript of a March 15 conference call between officials with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Protection about how to better regulate discharges of the wastewater that can be high in salts, metals and naturally occurring radioactive materials.
DEP is developing a guidance document about how to include new wastewater treatment standards into permits for new or expanding treatment plants that handle the drilling fluids. The new standards limit the amount of salty discharge, called total dissolved solids, that can enter state streams.
The draft guidance document would also bar treatment plants that receive untreated drilling wastewater from using their sludge for land application.
Ron Furlan, a division manager for DEP’s Bureau of Water Standards and Facility Regulation, is quoted in the the New York Times as saying sludge was included in the guidance document because “we don’t have a good handle on the radiological concerns right now, and in any case we don’t want people land-applying biosolids that may be contaminated to any significant level by radium 226-228 or other emitters.”
The guidance does not carry the legal weight of a regulation and would not be imposed on treatment plants unless their discharge permit is up for renewal or they apply for a new or expanded permit.
The draft guidance also proposes that treatment plants accepting untreated drilling wastewater develop radiation protection “action plans” and have monitoring requirements for radium 226 and 228, gross alpha and uranium established in their permits.
In a letter this week to the EPA, DEP Acting Secretary Michael Krancer wrote that the state has directed 14 public water supplies that draw from rivers downstream from treatment plants that accept Marcellus Shale wastewater to test the finished drinking water for radioactive contaminants and other pollutants. The state also called on 25 treatment plants that accept the wastewater to begin twice monthly testing for radioactivity in their discharges.
Tests of seven state rivers at sites downstream from wastewater treatment plants last fall showed that levels of radioactivity were at or below normal levels.
In the conference call quoted by the New York Times, environmental regulators also expressed concerns about radionuclides settling in the sediment of rivers where the incompletely treated wastewater is discharged from sewer plants.
“If you were really looking for radionuclides, that’s the first place I would look,” Furlan said.
DEP spokeswoman Katy Gresh said Friday that there are currently no plans to begin testing river sediment for radionuclides.
“We will use the results of the increased testing/monitoring to see what is being discharged before making that decision,” she said.
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: April 9, 2011
http://citizensvoice.com/news/state-may-limit-drilling-byproduct-from-being-spread-on-farms-1.1130088#axzz1J1xZtYwG
Fly ash contamination report sparks concern
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/top/2011/01/04-38/Fly-ash-contamination-report-sparks-concern.html
Pristina Fly ash contamination report sparks concern
Leopold calls for more testing of wells, but development continues
By ERIN COX and PAMELA WOOD, Staff Writers
Capital Gazette Communications
Published 01/04/11
In 2007, fly ash is dumped and spread at a pit off of Evergreen Road in Gambrills. A report about fly ash contamination has sparked concern over the safety of drinking water in the area.
Opponents of a $275 million Gambrills shopping center to be built atop a fly ash dump have called in experts to bolster their case.
The findings sparked new concerns about the safety of drinking water in the area, but the companies working to redevelop the dump say the worries are overblown.
A new review of data by a Johns Hopkins University researcher shows groundwater contamination has spread outside the system designed to contain it. A companion study by a Tufts University researcher predicts contamination could seep deeper into the ground, reaching the source of Gambrills-area wells in 15 years and seeping into public water supplies within a half-century.
“You don’t know if the plume capture system they have in place is capturing the contamination,” said the study’s author, Edward Bouwer, chair of the Geography and Environmental Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins. “I think there’s been lack of oversight.”
Both studies were commissioned because of a lawsuit designed to halt development of Village South at Waugh Chapel, but the report has drawn a public response from county officials.
Concerned about undetected contamination, County Executive John R. Leopold has asked state environmental officials to keep a closer watch on drinking wells.
Despite warnings that groundwater contamination concerns should be resolved first, the county has not taken any steps to slow development of the 80-acre Village South at Waugh Chapel complex, which will include shops, office space and homes.
Brian Gibbons, developer of the project, said the county has no reason to take any such steps.
He said his company and others involved in redeveloping the area have installed all the safeguards demanded by state environmental officials. Building the project, he said, will create a cap that stops stormwater from dissolving the fly ash buried below.
The Maryland Department of Environment required monitoring wells to track and contain contamination. Agency spokeswoman Dawn Stoltzfus said protecting drinking water is a top concern of the MDE, and that’s why the agency has a legal promise from the site owners they will fix the problem.
She said the agency’s technicians will review the new study and take additional steps, if warranted.
The group fighting the Village South at Waugh Chapel development said the MDE’s system for monitoring and cleaning up the contamination does not do enough to ensure public safety. The new study used data sent to the MDE to conclude that contamination is spreading. Once a sprawling shopping center is built atop the fly ash, they argue, it will be more difficult to fix environmental woes.
“Clean it up and then do the development,” said G. Macy Nelson, a Towson lawyer representing Crofton resident Robert Smith and the Patuxent Riverkeeper organization.
Nelson’s clients are suing the county, the state, developer Greenberg Gibbons, fly ash owner Constellation Energy and former dump owner BBSS Inc. to delay the development. The lawsuit was filed over the summer. No hearings have been set.
“Our goal is not to stop this development, our goal is to get a cleanup before they do the development,” Nelson said.
Filled with fly ash
The land proposed for 1.2 million square feet of development along Route 3 was once a sand-and-gravel mine. Constellation Energy filled it in with fly ash – a grainy byproduct of burning coal for electricity – for about a decade beginning in 1995.
Fly ash contains sulfates, chlorides and a host of heavy metals that easily dissolve in water. Those contaminants can harm human health. In 2006, the county detected the contaminants in drinking wells near the pit in Gambrills.
The finding sparked a county ban on burying fly ash elsewhere and actions by the Maryland Department of the Environment, including a $1 million fine for Constellation. The dump’s neighbors won a multimillion-dollar legal settlement that also set terms for cleaning up the site and eventually building on it.
The County Council unanimously renewed a one-year ban on new fly ash landfills in the county last night, although a permit is pending to dump fly ash at a site off Hawkins Point Road near the Baltimore City-Anne Arundel County line
Kevin Thornton, a spokesman for Constellation, said his company has been diligent in remedying the problems.
“We’re doing everything at the site we said we would do. We’re meeting all the requirements of the consent decree and we’re moving forward with remediation,” he said.
Other motives?
Gibbons, president of Greenberg Gibbons Commercial, said his company also has done its part to help the environment and he suspects the lawsuit stems from other motives.
The Village South at Waugh Chapel project will be anchored by a nonunion Wegmans grocery store, and Gibbons alleged union officials are bankrolling the lawsuit in order to stop a nonunion shop.
He said the opponents’ lawyer, Nelson, has been involved in union-funded fights over grocery store projects in Prince George’s and Howard counties. “They don’t care if we create 5,500 new jobs. They’re just trying to stop Wegmans,” he said.
When asked how a homeowner and an environmental group could afford to pay for scientific studies and piles of legal paperwork, Nelson said his staff has gotten very good over the years at researching cases at a low cost.
Not an issue
Community activist Torrey Jacobsen, who also has professional connections to a grocers’ union and is not involved in the lawsuit, said the Wegmans had nothing to do with the lawsuit.
“The fly ash issue was being fought before the Wegmans was even an option,” Jacobsen said. “There are a lot of people with wells out there.”
Those concerns prompted Leopold to write last week to the MDE’s acting secretary, Robert Summers, asking him to take action to better track the contaminants flowing out of the pit.
“There is no evidence that the public water supply has been affected by the groundwater contamination at the fly ash site,” Leopold wrote. “However, the request for additional monitoring wells is a measure being taken to protect public health and to assure the public that municipal water supply wells will remain unaffected by contamination.”
ecox@capitalgazette.com
pwood@capitalgazette.com
A debate over fly ash disposal
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10350/1109210-114.stm
San Dimas A debate over fly ash disposal
Thursday, December 16, 2010
By David Templeton and Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Piles of fly ash sit atop a hill at the Matt Canestrale Contracting Inc. disposal site in La Belle, Fayette County.
Before Penn Power created Little Blue Lake in 1975, the company circulated fliers advertising a picturesque recreation area where people could boat and ski on blue waters.
So 35 years later, where are all the boats and skiers?
And, for that matter, where’s the lake?
The so-called “lake” in Beaver County’s Greene Township, near the boroughs of Georgetown and Hookstown, was created as a disposal pit for calcium sulfate and fly ash generated at the 2,390-megawatt Bruce Mansfield Power Plant in nearby Shippingport.
Today it looks like moonscape.
Coal waste, 400 feet deep and even deeper, extends across the state line into West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle and covers about 1,000 acres on a site that is 2 square miles. The 100 million tons of waste includes 60 million tons of calcium sulfate — generated by the scrubbing process to remove sulfur dioxide from smokestack emissions — and 40 million tons of fly ash, which is a byproduct of the coal-burning process to produce electricity.
The only sign of life on a late-summer day was a flock of Canada geese walking — not swimming — across the weird surface.
As one of the nation’s largest coal-waste disposal sites, Little Blue is a centerpiece of a nationwide debate about the safety of such impoundments and whether fly ash should be designated as hazardous waste.
Heavy metals in fly ash, including arsenic, lead, mercury, cobalt and thallium, should be designated as hazardous, environmental groups say.
But the power industry says such a designation will hinder beneficial uses for fly ash, including in concrete. Calcium sulfate is used in wallboard, but its dust can irritate eyes, skin, mucous membranes and the upper respiratory tract. Dust periodically has been a concern at the site.
Critics question whether the millions of tons can remain sealed on site or if their heavy metals leach into groundwater and damage the environment and public health.
The more immediate debate centers on whether leaching already has begun.
Site owner FirstEnergy Corp., based in Akron, Ohio, says its “first of its kind” disposal site is safe. Up to 3.2 million gallons of sludge are sent daily to the site through seven miles of overland pipes.
“It’s been operating for 34 or 35 years safely with all the structural integrity it is designed to have,” said Ellen Raines, spokeswoman for FirstEnergy, which always has owned Little Blue but previously under the name Penn Power.
The state Department of Environmental Protection supports that conclusion.
“Coal-ash facilities in the region have to manage the waste, so they figure out how much waste they have and how long they can use the site and how to plan for continued disposal,” said Diane McDaniel, DEP facilities chief for waste management. “It’s nothing unusual.”
But the Environmental Integrity Project, working on behalf of concerned Greene Township residents, says Little Blue already is posing risks to the environment and residents’ health.
Lisa Graves Marcucci, an Integrity Project official who’s been studying Little Blue for years, points to problems she says the company and DEP have refused to remedy them.
“[FirstEnergy has] 10 of 69 monitoring wells on site showing elevated spikes for arsenic — and that’s as recent as the first and second quarters of this year,” she said. “The monitoring wells are the sentinels that say there’s a problem at the site, and if not addressed, will leave the site.”
A report issued by the Integrity Project, the Sierra Club and Earthjustice in September says 39 coal-ash dump sites in 21 states, including Little Blue, “are contaminating drinking water or surface water with arsenic and other heavy metals.”
The report also says state governments aren’t adequately monitoring the sites and encourages the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to enact new regulations designating fly ash as a hazardous waste to protect the public.
Every coal-ash site equipped with groundwater monitoring wells, it says, has concentrations of heavy metals — arsenic and lead included — that exceed federal drinking-water standards.
But Jeff Smith, a DEP geologist and expert on Little Blue Run and the disposal site, said quarterly data from monitoring wells at and surrounding the impoundment reveal no excess levels of primary contaminants. “That has been proven with the data and in all the residential samples I’ve collected,” he said.
Sporadic elevations in arsenic levels in 2009 and 2010 were traced to fertilizer FirstEnergy was using to plant grass over areas of the impoundment. Arsenic levels declined once the company changed fertilizers, Mr. Smith said.
In the 1970s, Penn Power built its earthen dam across Little Blue Run near the point where it enters the Ohio River, just north of Chester, W.Va., and across the river from East Liverpool, Ohio.
Initially, the company thought coal waste would sink to the lake bottom and harden into low-grade concrete, leaving the surface pristine and available for recreation. But it soon became apparent that the lake never could be open to the public, Ms. Raines said.
The entire disposal site now is encircled by a chain-link fence.
Unregulated waste
The American Coal Ash Association, which promotes beneficial uses for coal-combustion products, said the United States in 2007 produced 131 million tons of such materials, of which 75 million tons not used in concrete and other products had to be disposed of in 1,300 fly-ash dumps nationwide.
Most are not monitored or regulated.
Recent collapses of waste-impoundments display potential for health and environmental consequences when such systems fail.
The wall of a large impoundment of red sludge at the Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Co. collapsed Oct. 4 and sent the sludge flowing through a Hungarian town. Nine people died.
Fly-ash disposal became a domestic concern on Dec. 22, 2008, when a disposal cell at the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee collapsed and released 5.4 million cubic yards of ash slurry (ash mixed with water) onto 300 acres, polluting nearby Emory and Clinch rivers in the process.
A neighborhood had to be evacuated due to heavy-metal contamination and three homes were destroyed by the wave of water and ash.
Although soil samples contained arsenic, cobalt, iron and thallium levels that exceeded “residential Superfund soil-screening values,” the EPA ultimately ruled that the waste was not hazardous.
But the collapses have spawned fresh concern about Little Blue.
The dam, standing 400 feet high, looms over the Ohio River and represents that largest earthen dam in the eastern United States. In 2009 the EPA designated that the dam has “High Hazard Potential,” which means failure would lead to loss of life.
Ms. Raines of FirstEnergy said the dam’s height alone was reason for EPA’s hazard rating. She said the dam is safe: “It is inspected by our contractors twice a year and by DEP once a year.”
The dam, built with 9 million cubic yards of rock, has a base 1,300-feet thick and a top that’s 2,200 feet across, or about two-fifths of a mile. No one lives in the area between the dam and the Ohio River, Ms. Raines said.
Monitors are built into the dam to detect any movement. “This is not something taken lightly,” she said. “Safety has been the emphasis from the beginning.”
But Ms. Graves Marcucci said water seeps through the dam from the impoundment. But seepage is an expected consequence of the dam’s design, FirstEnergy said, noting that it collects the water and pumps it back into the impoundment.
Because the lake is full, the company has been filling sausage-shaped “geotubes” with dry waste since 2006 and stacking them atop the lake. FirstEnergy anticipates using Little Blue for five to eight more years. In time, it will be covered with mulch to promote vegetation growth. Only time will tell if the 1,300-acre impoundment can ever be used for anything other than a disposal pit.
“Keep in mind that this is a cement-like substance that hardens to a low-grade concrete” due to the presence of calcium sulfate, Ms. Raines said. “It dries up and sets. The situation in Tennessee was wet fly ash. That’s not the situation in Little Blue.”
DEP’s Mr. Smith said Little Blue’s white semi-solid surface is like putty; it’s not low-grade concrete but more substantial than a gel. The putty-like substance would help prevent heavy metals from leaching, he said.
Ms. Raines said FirstEnergy has tested well water on residential properties 70 times without discovering problems that can be traced to the impoundment.
But Ms. Graves Marcucci said the 100 million tons of sludge is pressing down on aquifers, creating pressure that potentially could cause heavy metals to leach into groundwater. Greene Township residents have no access to public water and rely on wells.
A University of Pittsburgh study, led by Conrad Dan Volz from Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health, is studying water quality in Greene Township but results are not yet available.
Neighbors’ concerns
West Virginians living near the impoundment face their own set of problems. Water has begun seeping from hillsides surrounding the impoundment, raising fears that water from Little Blue could be moving off site.
One woman’s sloping lawn is rolling up like carpeting due to hillside seepage.
Two other people have thyroid and respiratory illnesses they link to exposure to the impoundment over the hill from their home. They say a FirstEnergy official advised them against eating vegetables from their backyard garden, but company officials said no such advisory was ever issued.
At the home of John Reed Jr. within 1,000 yards of Little Blue, FirstEnergy’s water-well testing showed arsenic levels above safe drinking water limits. The company and DEP confirmed the high levels in one reading, but attributed it to a bad well casing that allowed the natural arsenic from soil to infiltrate the well.
DEP officials said seeps from the hillsides around the impoundment are under investigation.
Mark Durbin, a FirstEnergy spokesman, said the seep issue is “something we’re aware of and have discussed with residents. “We are hoping to move soon to take care of it,” he said.
Another concern is FirstEnergy’s proposal to build a new dry-waste disposal site with a double clay liner in Greene Township. FirstEnergy already owns 23 percent of the township, and supervisors said they don’t want another waste dump.
Health link?
Ultimately, the issue focuses on whether health impacts can be linked to Little Blue. Residents have done informal health surveys that have scared them.
“We seem to have a high rate of cancer,” said Sandra Wright, Greene Township secretary-treasurer. “On any road you have two or three people living with cancer daily.”
The township wants air monitors to determine the extent of air pollution from local and downwind sources. It also is awaiting results from the Pitt study before deciding on a next step.
The Post-Gazette’s ecological study of mortality rates for heart and respiratory disease and lung cancer shows elevated rates for the combined area of Greene Township, Hookstown and Georgetown.
Heart disease deaths there were 46 percent higher than the national rate. The total of 88 deaths from all three diseases is 42 percent higher than the predicted number of 62 deaths, based on national rates.
Scientific studies say these diseases can be linked to air pollution, but there are no studies suggesting a direct link to heavy-metal or fly-ash exposure.
David Templeton: dtempleton@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1578. Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.
First published on December 16, 2010 at 12:00 am
Waste material OK’d for Hazleton mineland
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Waste_material_OK_rsquo_d_for_Hazleton_mineland_12-13-2010.html
Waste material OK’d for Hazleton mineland
A company spokesman sees job creation, but a critic fears a hazardous waste dump.
STEVE MOCARSKY smocarsky@timesleader.com
HAZLETON – The state on Monday approved the use of waste material from coal-fired electric generation plants as fill for some abandoned mineland in southern Luzerne County.
Edwardsville-based Hazleton Creek Properties began the controversial reclamation project five years ago at the 277-acre site bounded by state routes 93, 309 and 924.
Some have opposed using certain types of fill at the site, believing they could harm local water supplies.
Hazleton Creek Properties spokesman Frank Keel said the privately funded reclamation project is arguably the most vetted of its kind in the state. He is sure the application was thoroughly examined and reviewed by the state Department of Environmental Protection and looks forward to the project moving ahead.
“Not only will the HCP project provide much-needed jobs for Hazleton area residents, it will also safely reclaim one of the most dangerous abandoned mines in Pennsylvania and turn it into developable land that will spur the local economy and create still more local jobs,” Keel said.
Todd Wallace, acting director of DEP’s Bureau of Waste Management, said the work will improve public safety and the environment by eliminating about 1.2 miles of dangerous highwalls and reducing acid mine drainage.
Under the terms of the permit, Hazleton Creek Properties will use up to 550,000 cubic yards annually of a mixture of dry flue gas desulfurization waste and coal ash to reclaim 53 acres of the site.
Dry flue gas waste is produced when a lime powder spray mixes with sulfur dioxide emissions in the air pollution control systems of coal-fired power plants.
“This permit will allow Hazleton Creek Properties to begin reclaiming a portion of the site and return it to productive use,” Wallace said.
The project does have detractors.
Bill Lockwood, president of local environmental group Save Us From Future Environmental Risk (SUFFER), said he was not surprised by DEP’s approval, given the agency’s past approval of other site permits despite opposition from environmentalists and some elected officials such as state Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Butler Township.
“It looks like instead of being the future site of an amphitheater, it’s going to be nothing but a hazardous waste dump,” Lockwood said.
A spokesman for Eachus, who has vehemently and vociferously opposed the use of dredged and other materials as fill from the project’s inception, did not return a call seeking comment.
This is the fourth permit regulating fill that DEP has issued. Since 2006, Hazleton Creek Properties has been using regulated fill material such as concrete, bricks, blocks and dredged material to build rail sidings and access roads, and to cap two old landfills at the site.
Two other permits issued this year authorize Hazleton Creek Properties to accept dredged materials, coal ash, and cement and lime furnace dust, as well as crushed construction and demolition material for use as fill.
Hazleton Creek Properties applied for the flue gas desulfurization permit in June. DEP held an informational meeting Aug. 31 and accepted public comment through the end of September.
Official seeks ordinance barring use of biosolids
http://www.tnonline.com/node/146100
Official seeks ordinance barring use of biosolids
Reported on Tuesday, October 26, 2010
By CHRIS PARKER cparker@tnonline.com
Lansford needs to have an ordinance in place barring the use of biosolids – commonly known as sludge – in the community, Tommy Vadyak of borough council’s Public Safety Committee said Monday.
He hopes that if Lansford adopts such an ordinance, surrounding communities will follow suit to the material, the byproduct of domestic and commercial sewage and wastewater treatment, out of the area.
Council may discuss the matter when it meets at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 9 in the borough’s community center at 1 W. Ridge St.
“It’s a safety matter,” he said. “Years ago, there were two young boys who died … I’m on the down side of life. It’s not to protect me, it’s to protect the youth coming up. I’m just looking out for their safety.”
Vadyak referred to 17-year-old Daniel Pennock of Mohrsville, Berks County, who died in 1995 days after coming in contact with biosolids used as fertilizer in a farmer’s field. Pennock died about six months after an 11-year-old Clearfield County boy, Tony Behun, died after riding his dirt bike across a strip mine where biosolids had been used.
He said there are few areas where biosolids might be used in Lansford. However, Lehigh Coal & Navigation of Pottsville has extensive mine pits in the Panther Valley where the substance could be used.
“I want to get a start here. Maybe if we get something started here, maybe the other communities around us will pick up on it and get one in place in their communities,” he said. “There are proper places to take biosolids; it’s not to dump it in our backyards.”
Vadyak said toxins from the material can be carried up to four miles on the wind. “I want to have a buffer,” he said. “Maybe we can get something going here to protect the whole area. This is not a dumping ground.”
Vadyak said that the biosolids matter surfaced in 1999-2000, when Lehigh Coal & Navigation of Pottsville proposed using the material to reclaim mine lands behind the Panther Valley High School in Summit Hill along Route 209 between Lansford and Nesquehoning. That plan was later dropped.
Lansford In June 2004 expected to adopt an ordinance governing biosolids, after neighboring Summit Hill adopted such an ordinance. That borough’s action was prompted by LC&N’s proposal to use biosolids, along with fly ash and kiln dust, for mine reclamation. The ordinance required that biosolids be tested for germs, chemicals, metals, radioactivity and material that would attract rodents.
Vadyak wants his council and those of neighboring communities to adopt an ordinance modeled after the much tougher one in place in East Brunswick Township, Schuylkill County, one that has withstood legal challenges at the state level.
East Brunswick’s ordinance will also likely be adopted Schuylkill Township supervisors. On Oct. 6, the Harrisburg Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility withdrew its plans to use biosolids in a Schuylkill Township mine reclamation project. The mine is on land owned by the county and leased to Premium Coal of Hazleton. The treatment facility and Material Matters, the Lancaster County consultant representing it, ran into a wall of opposition from residents and township officials.
Although Schuylkill Township has an ordinance in place regulating the use of the material, supervisors plan to update the law by adopting one based on the East Brunswick Township ordinance.
No biosolids dumping
http://www.tnonline.com/node/140749
No biosolids dumping
Reported on Thursday, October 7, 2010
By LIZ PINKEY TN Correspondent tneditor@tnonline.com
LIZ PINKEY/SPECIAL TO THE TIMES NEWS More than 70 residents and local officials packed into the Schuylkill Township building last night to protest a proposed biosolid dumping project.
Overflow Schuylkill Township crowd learns company will not pursue project
By LIZ PINKEY TN Correspondent tneditor@tnonline.com
It was standing room only at last night’s Schuylkill Township meeting. Approximately 65 residents filled the township hall, while another 10 spilled out into the hallway.
The group gathered to voice their opposition to a proposal to dump biosolids in the township. Also on hand to lend their support were state Rep. Jerry Knowles, East Brunswick Township Supervisor Jeff Faust, Tamaqua Mayor Christian Morrison, and Christine Verdier, state Sen. David Argall’s chief of staff.
The issue first came to light at last month’s meeting when representatives from Material Matters, an Elizabethtown-based consulting firm, presented a proposal to use biosolids for mine reclamation in the township.
Although residents came armed with “Stop the Dumping” signs and were clearly prepared to vehemently protest the use of biosolids, the point became moot when the supervisors received a fax from Material Matters just minutes before the start of the meeting, advising them that Material Matters would not be pursuing the project at this time.
A sigh of relief swept the audience, but many are aware that it is only a matter of time before the issue comes up again. Despite invitations to meet with Material Matters personnel and tour another facility where the biosolids have been utilized, Knowles said that he is not satisfied that the material is safe.
“I have a 2 1/2-year-old grandson and I would not want this stuff anywhere near him,” he said. “I don’t pretend to be a chemist, but I’m smart enough to know when something is bad.”
Verdier said that her primary concerns were not as Argall’s chief of staff, but as a resident of the immediate area.
“I’m your neighbor. I not only live here, I am active on the water authority. I walk the ball field often,” she said. “My relationship with the community was priority number one.” Verdier encouraged residents to stand united and behind the supervisors on the issue.
“This does not mean they will be gone forever,” she said of the company’s decision not to pursue the project.
Morrison also applauded the community’s determination to keep the sludge out of their township.
“The best thing you can do is what you’re doing right here,” he said. Faust, who as a supervisor in East Brunswick Township, has done battle with the sludge companies, encouraged the township to adopt an ordinance similar to the one that his township has in place. Faust related the three-year battle that East Brunswick waged against the state’s attorney general.
“We have been lobbying for three years to get legislation initiated to protect ourselves. If they’re not going to ban it, then it must come back to local control,” he said.
Township solicitor Michael Greek said that the township has an ordinance banning the dumping of biosolids in place; however, they are looking to update the ordinance based on the one that East Brunswick, that has withstood legal challenges. Supervisors Linda DeCindio and Charles Hosler agreed that the ordinance will be approved as quickly as possible.
“We finally found an honest whistleblower inside the Department of Environmental Protection,”
http://standardspeaker.com/news/dep-official-has-fill-worries-1.739344
DEP official has fill worries
BY KENT JACKSON (STAFF WRITER)
Published: April 22, 2010
An employee of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection took issue with a permit that his department gave to a company planning to fill a Hazleton mine pit with materials from demolition sites.
Chuck Rogers, a solid waste supervisor for the department, said the permit for a demonstration project doesn’t appear to cover the activities that Hazleton Creek Properties proposes.
They include placing waste directly into the environment, discharging waste to the land or waters of the state, and leaving waste behind after the project ends, Rogers wrote on March 24 in a memorandum.
Hazleton Creek said it met every condition that the department set while obtaining a permit through an open process in which Rogers played no role.
In the memo, Rogers asked how a reasonable inspector for the department could fail to place Hazleton Creek in violation of the permit for harming people or the environment.
As a consequence, Rogers wrote that he and the employees whom he directs want to be recused from handling inspections, complaints and reviews of the project.
“We finally found an honest whistleblower inside the Department of Environmental Protection,” said state House Majority Leader Todd Eachus, who represents Hazleton.
Eachus said the memo raises many of the concerns that he expressed last fall when asking the department to deny a permit to Hazleton Creek.
Frank Keel, a spokesman for Hazleton Creek, said leak of the memo was disturbing for many reasons and occurred during a contentious election season.
“One might speculate that there is more than a tinge of politics at work in these out-of-nowhere allegations,” Keel said in a statement. “The company met every condition and complied with every regulation set forth by the DEP over many months and in a very transparent process, which is why it was granted the permit to begin work on this environmentally and economically sound mine reclamation project.”
Eachus said he is concerned about the project because Hazleton Creek won’t have to install a liner before placing fill in the pit. He thought that the company should have posted a larger bond “so if there is a problem on this site the taxpayers of Hazleton and the commonwealth don’t have to pay the cleanup.”
Also, Eachus said Rogers’ memo confirms that the site should have been permitted and regulated like a landfill for construction and demolition debris.
Eachus said later in the year he might advocate a bill “to improve the transparency of these permit applications.”
In its permit application, Hazleton Creek asked to fill a 60-acre pit with a mixture of fine material from dredge material and construction and demolition sites. The operation will be part of an overall plan to reclaim 277 acres of mine land for an amphitheater and other businesses.
On March 12, the department approved Hazleton Creek’s application under the terms of a statewide general permit as a research and development project.
When granting the permit, the department also issued responses to public comments made earlier.
“Reclamation projects do not require a liner or other containment systems since the proposed chemical limits are considered protective without the need of a liner,” the department wrote in one response. While the department doesn’t require bonds to cover cleanup costs, it can require a greater bond if pollution occurs, another response said.
One condition of the permit, which the department can waive, said the total amount of waste on the site at any one time shall not exceed 50 tons. Another condition, cited by Rogers in the memo, said all solid waste and structures must be removed when the project ends.
Hazleton Creek plans to import 1.4 million cubic yards of fill and leave it in the pit, according to its permit application.
Rogers said he cannot discuss the issue.
But DEP spokesman Mark Carmon said Rogers wrote the memo for his supervisors.
“This was pretty much an internal document that was meant for discussion purposes,” Carmon said. “We’re going to have a look at the concerns that he raised.”
The memo was available as a public record for anyone who asked to review the department’s files on Hazleton Creek’s permit.
Although Rogers asked to be excused from making inspections, Carmon said the site will be inspected from the Wilkes-Barre office, where both he and Rogers work.
Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, who supports the plan to develop the land for an amphitheater, said the permit was approved by the department’s main office in Harrisburg. No role was assigned to the Wilkes-Barre office or to Rogers, whose memo Barletta characterized as “an attack on DEP and the secretary made by a regional employee.”
Carmon said the department will develop a plan for inspecting the site, but added that Hazleton Creek hasn’t begun importing fill under conditions of the permit.
Before bringing in fine material from construction and demolition sites, the company must submit paperwork identifying each new source of the material.
kjackson@standardspeaker.com