Ohio EPA opposes cap at Stark landfill
The Akron Beacon Journal
COLUMBUS - The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency is directing the company that owns the Countywide Recycling & Disposal Facility in southern Stark County not to proceed with capping parts of the landfill.
Capping those sections of the Pike Township landfill would be premature and a violation of EPA Director Chris Korleski's orders, as well as state law, Ed Gortner said Tuesday in an EPA letter to Republic Waste Services of Ohio.
The EPA wants the company to delay installing a permanent cap of clay and a synthetic liner until Korleski decides what steps are needed to extinguish underground fires at the 258-acre landfill.
To install a cap now would be ''implementing a remedy'' that has not been approved by the agency, Gortner said.
The company's plans to permanently cap 88 acres could ''exacerbate conditions'' at the landfill, said Gortner, enforcement coordinator in the EPA's Division of Solid and Infectious Waste Management.
Landfill general manager Tim Vandersall said the company had not started installing the cap but was considering the project, which was unlikely to begin before next spring.
Gortner also asked Countywide to inform the agency at least seven days in advance of installing a temporary synthetic liner on portions of the 88 acres.
''Premature placement of the cap may result in its removal for inspection/investigation of the conditions that exist beneath the temporary cap, an exercise that would be of great frustration to all parties,'' he wrote in a two-page letter posted on the EPA's Countywide Web site.
Korleski is reviewing the company's proposed remedy for dealing with the underground fires and is awaiting advice from a panel of experts on how to best proceed.
The company, in a May 25 filing, called for synthetic caps over 88 acres to keep liquids and oxygen out of the buried wastes. The company said it could take three to six years to solve the fire problem.
The EPA has fined Countywide $1 million for the fires, which the company blames on chemical reactions from buried aluminum wastes coming into contact with landfill liquids.
View related articles:
