Experts say landfill fire would pose some risks
BY Robert Wang
The Canton Repository
PIKE TWP - Since August, environmental regulators, activists, consultants, a pilot and a landfill manager have clashed over whether an underground fire is burning at the Countywide Recycling and Disposal Facility.
Even within the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, documents show that the agency’s staffers in Twinsburg and Columbus have had intense debates about it. It got so contentious that an EPA staffer in Columbus, who was pushing for more investigation of a possible fire, in a memo accused other staffers of putting concern about “public and media opinion of the landfill” over a possible threat to people’s health.
As late as December, the state agency said it didn’t believe Countywide had a fire. It sided with the landfill’s evaluation that disintegrating aluminum waste was most likely causing the heat and stench at the landfill.
Then a pilot reported that aerial thermal images he took of Countywide indicated it was on fire underground and the fire was growing. In response, the EPA called in a landfill fire expert from California.
So what difference does it make if there is a fire?
And what could the effect be on local residents of a fire or a chemical reaction?
SOME BACKGROUND
The first indication that something was wrong at Countywide landfill came from the hundreds of complaints throughout last year from southern Stark and northern Tuscarawas county residents about a nauseating odor. Countywide’s general manager, Tim Vandersall, said consultants went through the landfill’s records trying to figure out the cause.
They started to focus on hundreds of thousands of tons of aluminum dross waste dumped at Countywide from 1993 to 2001. Aluminum dross is a byproduct of aluminum processing.
Vandersall acknowledged it was known then that when mixed with water, the dross produces ammonia gas, but the dross is not regarded as hazardous in Ohio.
But landfills also produce liquid runoff known as leachate when rain flows through waste.
The landfill’s lab tests in 2006 showed that aluminum dross samples from the landfill, when mixed with leachate, produced intense heat and hydrogen gas.
The reaction is the primary suspect in the cause of the odor, scattered temperatures of more than 200 degrees and the sinking of about three acres of the landfill by about 25 feet in five months.
FIRE SCENARIOS
Todd Thalhamer, a landfill-fire expert for the California Environmental Protection Agency called in by Ohio EPA to study Countywide, said he has never seen a situation like this.
He said if it’s a chemical reaction occurring deep within Countywide and not a fire, it’s impossible to predict the effects because the reaction is so unusual.
But based on his knowledge of landfill fires, if the aluminum dross reaction has sparked an underground fire, it could reach a temperature of 500 to 1,000 degrees.
“Those temperatures will basically destroy the engineering components of the landfill,” Thalhamer said. “It’s so hot it will melt the liner. It will melt the gas well.”
The plastic liner at the bottom of the landfill — above a claylike matting and 3 feet of clay — helps prevent waste and leachate from leaking into area water. If the liner melts, “hopefully, you have backup systems,” said Thalhamer. “The liner melts, then you have the potential for groundwater contamination.”
Vandersall acknowledged the high temperatures but insisted, “We’re convinced there’s no fire” because there has been no sign of flame, smoke, ash, soot or charred remains in the 3,300 samples of waste that Countywide has extracted.
The landfill is no longer taking such samples, he said.
EPA spokesman Mike Settles said his agency’s inspectors also saw no sign of fire in those samples. But an August EPA memo reported “a possible underground smoldering event.”
Though Countywide dismissed it as “underground composting,” the memo said, the agency “is of the opinion that the situation ... may be due to a subsurface landfill fire.”
Settles said the agency backed off that opinion later and stressed that, even if there were a fire and damage to the liner system, Countywide has a ring of monitoring wells, which are sampled twice a year, that would detect any contaminants trying to escape from the landfill. Because it would take months to years before contaminants could spread into area water, the EPA could take action — such as trying to pump the pollutants out. Also, an EPA hydrologist said the water fields for Canton and Bolivar are uphill from the landfill, and contaminants could not flow into them.
Gas wells take smelly landfill gases to a flare to be burned. If they’re damaged, the landfill’s ability to control odors would be compromised.
A leachate collection system, which Thalhamer said also could melt in a fire, collects leachate that is piped into trucks and taken to be processed at an area sewage plant.
“Let’s say the leachate collection system melts,” said Thalhamer. “You’re no longer able to extract leachate from the landfill, ... (then) it would overflow like a bathtub would.”
While the landfill fire is underground, its smoke will be contained, Thalhamer said. But if it burns buried waste, that could spark a collapse. Then the fire could break to the surface and release toxic smoke.
Tony Sperling, a landfill engineer and industrial firefighter based in North Vancouver, British Columbia, agreed that a fire that bursts to the surface could cause more problems. It could release fine ash or cancer-causing substances and it could be a danger to firefighters because of ground instability, he said.
East Sparta Fire Chief Arnold Adams said he does not believe the landfill is on fire because he’s seen no evidence of it. He noted, “With an underground fire ... there is no immediate life threats or hazards to any residents in our area.”
But if it became clear there is a landfill fire, he said, his department, which serves Pike Township, could respond to evacuate and rescue people, but it doesn’t have the expertise to extinguish such a fire.
DROSS SCENARIOS
Countywide continues to maintain that the odor, high temperatures and rapid settling of parts of the landfill are all tied to the chemical reaction of the aluminum dross.
Vandersall said the landfill has helped cut off oxygen and moisture that would fuel the reaction by putting a 30-acre plastic cap over part of the landfill’s original 88-acre area.
“We have it under control at this point,” he said.
Until a year ago, Countywide had been recirculating the leachate it collected throughout the landfill to try to speed up the decomposition of waste. It stopped that as the number of odor complaints climbed, and Countywide now hauls millions of gallons of leachate a year to wastewater treatment plants.
Vandersall said the landfill is suffocating the reaction.
Thalhamer said other landfills have had problems with dross, but not like Countywide’s.
“There’s no facility that’s had this chemical reaction with aluminum waste that we’re aware of,” he said.
If the dross is the problem, why not remove it?
For one, the EPA says, it’s spread throughout the landfill.
“To dig up significant quantities of the aluminum dross may prove not technically feasible,” said Thalhamer.
Vandersall said digging into the waste also could release more odors.
Countywide proposed in August injecting road salt into the landfill to slow the waste decomposition. Settles said the EPA was concerned that putting another substance in the landfill could worsen the odor and reaction, though the agency has not completely rejected the idea.
SORTING THINGS OUT
Figuring out what’s going on underground at Countywide took a legal turn Friday, when Pike Township went to Stark County Common Pleas Court to ask a judge to force Countywide to turn over documents about what it’s done about the odor at the landfill. It claims the landfill has refused to give Pike Township officials the information they’re seeking.
Vandersall said he doesn’t recall the officials’ ever asking him for documents.
Pike’s filing said it may try to close the landfill down as a nuisance because of the “foul odor that has and continues to persistently and pervasively impact residents.”
By Feb. 21, EPA Director Chris Korleski says, he will issue a recommendation on whether the Stark County Board of Health should suspend Countywide’s operating license.
So has the EPA taken the right actions on Countywide?
“If there’s anything we should have done or there’s anything we should do differently, time will tell,” said Settles. “We’re dealing with something under the ground that we can’t see, so we’re relying on a variety of indicators about what the source might be.”
But, he said, “if the landfill would close today, nothing would change.”
The Canton Repository
PIKE TWP - Since August, environmental regulators, activists, consultants, a pilot and a landfill manager have clashed over whether an underground fire is burning at the Countywide Recycling and Disposal Facility.
Even within the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, documents show that the agency’s staffers in Twinsburg and Columbus have had intense debates about it. It got so contentious that an EPA staffer in Columbus, who was pushing for more investigation of a possible fire, in a memo accused other staffers of putting concern about “public and media opinion of the landfill” over a possible threat to people’s health.
As late as December, the state agency said it didn’t believe Countywide had a fire. It sided with the landfill’s evaluation that disintegrating aluminum waste was most likely causing the heat and stench at the landfill.
Then a pilot reported that aerial thermal images he took of Countywide indicated it was on fire underground and the fire was growing. In response, the EPA called in a landfill fire expert from California.
So what difference does it make if there is a fire?
And what could the effect be on local residents of a fire or a chemical reaction?
SOME BACKGROUND
The first indication that something was wrong at Countywide landfill came from the hundreds of complaints throughout last year from southern Stark and northern Tuscarawas county residents about a nauseating odor. Countywide’s general manager, Tim Vandersall, said consultants went through the landfill’s records trying to figure out the cause.
They started to focus on hundreds of thousands of tons of aluminum dross waste dumped at Countywide from 1993 to 2001. Aluminum dross is a byproduct of aluminum processing.
Vandersall acknowledged it was known then that when mixed with water, the dross produces ammonia gas, but the dross is not regarded as hazardous in Ohio.
But landfills also produce liquid runoff known as leachate when rain flows through waste.
The landfill’s lab tests in 2006 showed that aluminum dross samples from the landfill, when mixed with leachate, produced intense heat and hydrogen gas.
The reaction is the primary suspect in the cause of the odor, scattered temperatures of more than 200 degrees and the sinking of about three acres of the landfill by about 25 feet in five months.
FIRE SCENARIOS
Todd Thalhamer, a landfill-fire expert for the California Environmental Protection Agency called in by Ohio EPA to study Countywide, said he has never seen a situation like this.
He said if it’s a chemical reaction occurring deep within Countywide and not a fire, it’s impossible to predict the effects because the reaction is so unusual.
But based on his knowledge of landfill fires, if the aluminum dross reaction has sparked an underground fire, it could reach a temperature of 500 to 1,000 degrees.
“Those temperatures will basically destroy the engineering components of the landfill,” Thalhamer said. “It’s so hot it will melt the liner. It will melt the gas well.”
The plastic liner at the bottom of the landfill — above a claylike matting and 3 feet of clay — helps prevent waste and leachate from leaking into area water. If the liner melts, “hopefully, you have backup systems,” said Thalhamer. “The liner melts, then you have the potential for groundwater contamination.”
Vandersall acknowledged the high temperatures but insisted, “We’re convinced there’s no fire” because there has been no sign of flame, smoke, ash, soot or charred remains in the 3,300 samples of waste that Countywide has extracted.
The landfill is no longer taking such samples, he said.
EPA spokesman Mike Settles said his agency’s inspectors also saw no sign of fire in those samples. But an August EPA memo reported “a possible underground smoldering event.”
Though Countywide dismissed it as “underground composting,” the memo said, the agency “is of the opinion that the situation ... may be due to a subsurface landfill fire.”
Settles said the agency backed off that opinion later and stressed that, even if there were a fire and damage to the liner system, Countywide has a ring of monitoring wells, which are sampled twice a year, that would detect any contaminants trying to escape from the landfill. Because it would take months to years before contaminants could spread into area water, the EPA could take action — such as trying to pump the pollutants out. Also, an EPA hydrologist said the water fields for Canton and Bolivar are uphill from the landfill, and contaminants could not flow into them.
Gas wells take smelly landfill gases to a flare to be burned. If they’re damaged, the landfill’s ability to control odors would be compromised.
A leachate collection system, which Thalhamer said also could melt in a fire, collects leachate that is piped into trucks and taken to be processed at an area sewage plant.
“Let’s say the leachate collection system melts,” said Thalhamer. “You’re no longer able to extract leachate from the landfill, ... (then) it would overflow like a bathtub would.”
While the landfill fire is underground, its smoke will be contained, Thalhamer said. But if it burns buried waste, that could spark a collapse. Then the fire could break to the surface and release toxic smoke.
Tony Sperling, a landfill engineer and industrial firefighter based in North Vancouver, British Columbia, agreed that a fire that bursts to the surface could cause more problems. It could release fine ash or cancer-causing substances and it could be a danger to firefighters because of ground instability, he said.
East Sparta Fire Chief Arnold Adams said he does not believe the landfill is on fire because he’s seen no evidence of it. He noted, “With an underground fire ... there is no immediate life threats or hazards to any residents in our area.”
But if it became clear there is a landfill fire, he said, his department, which serves Pike Township, could respond to evacuate and rescue people, but it doesn’t have the expertise to extinguish such a fire.
DROSS SCENARIOS
Countywide continues to maintain that the odor, high temperatures and rapid settling of parts of the landfill are all tied to the chemical reaction of the aluminum dross.
Vandersall said the landfill has helped cut off oxygen and moisture that would fuel the reaction by putting a 30-acre plastic cap over part of the landfill’s original 88-acre area.
“We have it under control at this point,” he said.
Until a year ago, Countywide had been recirculating the leachate it collected throughout the landfill to try to speed up the decomposition of waste. It stopped that as the number of odor complaints climbed, and Countywide now hauls millions of gallons of leachate a year to wastewater treatment plants.
Vandersall said the landfill is suffocating the reaction.
Thalhamer said other landfills have had problems with dross, but not like Countywide’s.
“There’s no facility that’s had this chemical reaction with aluminum waste that we’re aware of,” he said.
If the dross is the problem, why not remove it?
For one, the EPA says, it’s spread throughout the landfill.
“To dig up significant quantities of the aluminum dross may prove not technically feasible,” said Thalhamer.
Vandersall said digging into the waste also could release more odors.
Countywide proposed in August injecting road salt into the landfill to slow the waste decomposition. Settles said the EPA was concerned that putting another substance in the landfill could worsen the odor and reaction, though the agency has not completely rejected the idea.
SORTING THINGS OUT
Figuring out what’s going on underground at Countywide took a legal turn Friday, when Pike Township went to Stark County Common Pleas Court to ask a judge to force Countywide to turn over documents about what it’s done about the odor at the landfill. It claims the landfill has refused to give Pike Township officials the information they’re seeking.
Vandersall said he doesn’t recall the officials’ ever asking him for documents.
Pike’s filing said it may try to close the landfill down as a nuisance because of the “foul odor that has and continues to persistently and pervasively impact residents.”
By Feb. 21, EPA Director Chris Korleski says, he will issue a recommendation on whether the Stark County Board of Health should suspend Countywide’s operating license.
So has the EPA taken the right actions on Countywide?
“If there’s anything we should have done or there’s anything we should do differently, time will tell,” said Settles. “We’re dealing with something under the ground that we can’t see, so we’re relying on a variety of indicators about what the source might be.”
But, he said, “if the landfill would close today, nothing would change.”
View original article.
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