The Moretown landfill has finished installing a temporary cap on two acres of the disposal site, a move landfill representatives say has reduced off-site odors that have brought extensive scrutiny to the facility.
Neighbor and spokesperson for Citizens for Landfill Environmental Accountability and Responsibility, Martha Douglass, said that the smells have been better in the last couple of weeks, but that they are still not what anyone would want to live with. She said she was hesitant to attribute the improvement to the temporary cap, because the recent extreme cold and wind could also have reduced the odors in the neighborhood.
“We’re really just kind of hanging in there and waiting to see where it goes,” she said.
The landfill finished installing the temporary cap last Friday in response to a notice of alleged violation from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources in November. The notice asked the landfill to take immediate measures to fix off-site odors.
Meanwhile, the Agency of Natural Resources has announced it intends to deny the landfill recertification, which would effectively shut down the Route 2 landfill, one of only two lined landfills in Vermont. The agency will issue a final decision in early March. Either way, the landfill is required to stop the odors.
Neighbors have been complaining for years about the stink wafting from the landfill; this year, complaints skyrocketed, in part due to rotten egg odors released during the construction of the temporary cap.
The landfill has a gas collection system designed to vacuum gas from decomposing trash out of the landfill, preventing it from escaping into the air. That gas is then used to produce enough electricity to power 2,600 homes, or it is burned. But when water gets into the gas collection system, which is common, it lowers the system’s ability to vacuum out gas. This allows gas to escape out of the surface of the landfill into the air and waft around the neighborhood, leading to the recent complaints.
The temporary cap and de-watering of gas wells are designed to reduce this.
The District 5 Environmental Commission, which has regulatory oversight under the Act 250 land-use law, recently questioned whether the landfill’s work on the temporary cap was permitted. After a couple of decision reversals, which slowed cap construction and left excavated trash exposed, the commission gave the landfill the go-ahead to finish the first two acres of work. It cautioned that the landfill needs to apply for another permit to finish the rest. The landfill hopes to cap 5.7 acres in an earthen and plastic membrane to control odors until a permanent cap can be installed in the summer.
Last week the landfill also installed pipes to transport water from the gas wells to a tank onsite; previously, the landfill moved the trash-infused water by trucking it.
The landfill changed ownership in September, from Interstate Waste Services to Advanced Disposal. Both companies are owned by the same investment firm, Highstar Capital. Officials from Advanced Disposal blame poor management by the previous operator for the problems the landfill has been having.
Advanced Disposal has raised economic issues in its arguments that the landfill should continue to operate. Recently, Advanced Disposal contracted Richard Heaps, an economic consultant, to analyze the economic impact of the landfill. The resulting report said that based on a simulation of the regional economy, closure of the landfill would cause the loss of 44 jobs and $372,400 in annual state tax revenue.
On Jan. 21, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns weighed in on the issue. It wrote a letter to David Mears, the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, urging his agency to conduct a deeper review into the effect closing the landfill will have on municipalities. The tone of the letter was supportive of keeping the landfill open. The Vermont League of Cities and Towns is a non-profit organization that represents all 246 cities and towns in Vermont.
Neighbors have called in 342 odor complaints since August 2011, 114 of which were in the last two months. The complaints roughly doubled over Christmas and the New Year holidays, before falling back to the same level as at the beginning of December, of one or two per day.
Mary O’Brien, Advanced Disposal’s chief marketing officer, said that in the last few weeks the landfill has been sending out daily progress reports to 30 to 40 neighbors.
“I don’t want them to believe what we say, believe what we do,” she said.
