Residents tired of landfill odor
The Canton Repository
BOLIVAR - With the odor problems at Countywide Recycling & Disposal Facility showing no signs of going away, waste district officials and residents showed signs Friday that their patience is almost exhausted.
The Pike Township landfill’s manager, Tim Vandersall, addressed the board of the Stark-Tuscarawas-Wayne Joint Solid Waste Management District, apologized again and repeated that his people are doing everything they can. He explained that the odor appears to be coming from aluminum waste dumped in the landfill in the 1990s.
Vandersall’s words didn’t reassure Tricia Adams of Lawrence Township in Tuscarawas County. She said her 9-year-old daughter is suffering from the odor at Bolivar School. Her children are getting sick, her property is becoming worthless, and she always has to keep her windows closed, Adams said.
“Their pockets are getting fat with all this money they’re making to put our lives in danger,” she said. Vandersall is “going to burn in hell. God’s going to punish him. You can’t do this to a community.”
Adams later apologized and said that the odor problem wasn’t Vandersall’s fault.
Enraged officials
Tuscarawas County Commissioner Jim Seldenright repeatedly snapped at Vandersall and Ohio EPA officials.
Seldenright asked Vandersall how long it would take for him to call the sheriff if someone blocked the entrance to the landfill with a truck. He said the odor problem is the equivalent of the landfill blocking residents’ neighborhoods with a truck.
“You still haven’t moved your truck,” Seldenright angrily said.
Ohio EPA Environmental Manager Kurt Princic said that his agency did air testing in August for certain volatile organic substances. A toxicologist had found no signs of a health threat. Meanwhile, Princic said the landfill was doing extensive air quality testing for substances beyond what the EPA had tested for.
Seldenright asked, “You’re the regulating agency. Why aren’t you testing for it?”
Tuscarawas County Commissioner Kerry Metzger said, “The public does not trust Countywide doing their own sampling. ... there’s no trust in this community that Countywide will do what’s in the best interests of the residents.”
Princic said the EPA was looking into hiring independent contractors to do the testing.
“Looking into? How long is it going to take?” Seldenright asked. “Why can’t you contract with someone who can do that. Why do we have to wait?”
“We don’t have money set aside for that type of sampling,” said EPA District Chief William Skowronski. “We have to find it in our budget. We have to find the lab that can do it.”
Princic said the EPA will do even more testing to ensure there’s no health threat. He said inspectors will collect samples every six days from a cell-phone tower at the landfill and Bolivar School as well as two other roaming locations.
Legal issues
Stark County Health Commissioner William Franks told district board members that his agency was researching what it could do legally if the landfill fails to abate the odor by a Dec. 15 deadline imposed by the EPA. Although the Stark County Health Board could refuse to renew Countywide’s operating license for 2007, it might not have the legal authority to do so.
The board voted unanimously to file an appeal to the Environment Review Appeals Commission. The board’s lawyers will argue that the EPA’s odor-abatement order to Countywide isn’t tough enough. The board will also try to be named as a party in Countywide’s appeal of the EPA’s order.
Stark County Commissioner Richard Regula said the EPA should have made the deadline the end of October and make it clear it will shut down the landfill if the odors don’t cease.
“We’re just going to keep the pressure on,” Regula said.
The district also approved giving $6,500 to Lawrence Township to buy special devices to measure odor intensity.
Vandersall said a plastic cap is being installed over part of the landfill to try to contain the odors, but the work would take a few more weeks to complete.
Princic wouldn’t say if the cap would stop the odors. “Can I make a promise ... ? No we can’t.”
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