Friday, February 23, 2007

 

To close - or not to close? - Bolivar area residents crossing collective fingers; Countywide decision nears

By ZACH LINT
The Times-Reporter

EAST SPARTA - The Stark County Board of Health is expected to make a decision on Countywide Recycling & Disposal Facility’s 2007 operating license Thursday based on a recommendation from Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Chris Korleski. That recommendation is to be handed down today.

Tuscarawas County commissioners have voted to cancel their Thursday meeting so they may attend the Stark board’s 8 a.m. session in Canton.

“The future of commercial and residential development in the northern part of the county will be affected by the recommendation made tomorrow,” Commissioner Jim Seldenright said Tuesday. “Look at the businesses. Look at the restaurants that have customers having to put up with the stench from the landfill.

“I hope to hear they are not going to renew Countywide’s operating license for 2007 until – at the very least – all of the problems get corrected at the landfill.”

Commissioners said they would be “shocked” if the landfill were permitted to continue operating as usual.

“Ultimately, we would like to see it shut down, but even the EPA director talked about how there would be a due-process piece to his recommendation,” Commissioner Kerry Metzger said. “From commissioners’ point of view, our biggest concern and top priority is to make sure that whatever is happening up at Countywide doesn’t negatively impact the health of the citizens who live in that area.”

Commissioner Chris Abbuhl said commissioners have done all they can do, and it’s now in the hands of the OEPA and Stark County Board of Health.

Abbuhl has advocated that the Stark board take action without the EPA’s recommendation. The board has that authority but has not exercised it.

“The reason the EPA is such a large player in our decision is that the decision on the license is based on findings and orders propagated under air pollution,” Stark County Health Commissioner William Franks said last week.

“The Board of Health does not enforce and is not an air pollution agency,” he said. “It is not trained and has no equipment or expertise in that area, so that is why it boils down to the Canton City Air Pollution Control Division and EPA’s recommendation.”

On Friday, findings from Todd Thalhamer, a California EPA expert on underground fires, stated there are, in fact, two fires burning beneath Countywide.

Thalhamer said a classic metal fire and an underground smoldering fire caused the stench that plagued residents and motorists near the landfill for much of 2006.

Thalhamer’s full statement of findings is available at www.timesreporter.com.

The metal fire is a chemical reaction – which Thalhamer termed as “self-sustaining” – of more than 100,000 tons of aluminum dross, an industrial manufacturing byproduct that was sent to the landfill by Barmet Aluminum Corp. at Uhrichsville for much of the 1990s.

A 1993 document from Waste Management Inc. – Countywide’s previous owner – released by Franks stated that the landfill expected to receive about 1,500 tons of aluminum dross per month from Barmet. The landfill stopped accepting aluminum dross in 2001.

Countywide General Manager Tim Vandersall has maintained, as has Countywide’s parent company, Republic Waste Services, that the landfill is not on fire.

A media advisory sent Monday reiterated the companies’ stance that the landfill is not on fire and stated that the landfill has taken every measure possible to ensure the public’s safety.

The landfill installed a gas extrication system in 2006 and used a plastic cap to seal the troubled 30-acre section of the landfill’s original 88 acres where the aluminum dross is located.

Members of Club 3000, Bolivar officials and Stark-Tuscarawas-Wayne Joint Solid Waste District members are scheduled for a 9 a.m. hearing of oral arguments Friday with the Environmental Review Appeals Commission in Columbus.

According to officials, the meeting aims to allow new evidence into an appeal against a permit to install that the Ohio EPA granted to Countywide in June 2003, allowing the landfill to develop an additional 170 acres at the site for future trash disposal.

The liner for that expansion appeared to be well under construction during a Nov. 30 visit by T-R staffers.