toledoblade.com -- Oregon bullish for funds to secure landfill

Barring another extension, Envirosafe Services of Ohio Inc. can't accept hazardous waste past Dec. 29, 2015, at the landfill it operates at Otter Creek and Cedar Point roads in Oregon.

Not so clear is whether Envirosafe has bankrolled enough money to keep its facility from polluting water that flows into western Lake Erie's ecologically sensitive Maumee Bay.

Oregon officials fear they someday could inherit that massive responsibility. They're urging the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to make the company commit every nickel it can for long-term cleanup and maintenance of the site.

The dump is the only one in Ohio commercially licensed to bury hazardous waste.

Though Envirosafe's perpetual care trust fund now has an estimated $53 million, Oregon officials fear the company has underestimated its future costs.

Ohio EPA auditors figure the fund has about a $17 million cushion, or surplus. Oregon takes issue with the company's current $36 million estimate for closure and post-closure work.

The agency doesn't.

At the discretion of the Ohio EPA director, the agency lets Envirosafe use some of the money to pay for site investigation and other work, said Ed Lim, manager of the agency's hazardous waste management division.

So the question lingers: Is the Ohio EPA being prudent and fair to both sides?

Mr. Lim acknowledged the predicament. Envirosafe will need millions of dollars to close down the landfill and suck contaminated leachate out of all of its cells, possibly for decades. It needs to install at least two more landfill caps, then maintain those and all others so that they don't degrade and allow rainwater back into the pits.

Budgeting money for such work is about as clear as gazing into a crystal ball and predicting the future, Mr. Lim said.

"These are all value judgments. Nobody has the right answer or the wrong answer," he said.

The money will come from a fund Envirosafe established with $11 million in 1991 as part of its permit negotiations with the state. Investments have brought the figure up to $53 million.

Oregon officials believe any perceived surplus should be off-limits until costs are firmed up.

"The notion [that] this is surplus money is not accurate," said Tom Hays, assistant city law director, who said the Ohio EPA needs to have more money "tagged and earmarked."

He did not say how much. But he said the company needs to dedicate more money for anything from replacing worn-out pumps to addressing oily residue on the site.

The Ohio EPA renewed Envirosafe's permit for 10 years on Dec. 29, 2005.

Another renewal is possible, although Envirosafe President Doug Roberts said he figures the dump's only active disposal pit, called Cell M, is down to six to nine years of capacity.

Mr. Roberts said Envirosafe isn't going anywhere.

The company is committed to treating hazardous waste on-site and is "always looking at options" for opening up sites for disposal, he said.

"I'm not sure whether we will expand or build new landfill space, but we'll be operating the treatment plant [where metals are stabilized] as long as we can," Mr. Roberts said.

Leachate is the watery, chemical mix that forms when rainwater penetrates landfills.

Robust, modern landfill caps are engineered to be impermeable. Their degree of success is debated.

While Mr. Roberts sees a day in which leachate will dissipate to virtually nothing, Oregon officials disagree.

In an Oct. 13 letter to Joe Koncelik, Ohio EPA director, Oregon Mayor Marge Brown said she was "shocked" to learn that Mr. Lim and Lynn Ackerson, the agency's site coordinator, believe 18 years is a "reasonable" time frame for calculating Envirosafe's remaining financial obligation for three sites operated by the former Fondessy Enterprises Inc.

Those sites, called the Millard Avenue Landfill, Central Sanitary Landfill, and Northern Sanitary Landfill, held a mixture of household and industrial wastes. They date back to 1954 and were not lined. Envirosafe inherited them when it acquired the landfill in 1983.

Thirty years is the standard assessment period, though Mr. Lim said it's somewhat arbitrary. The obligation is not fixed in time; it depends solely on when leachate chemicals have broken down to the point of being inconsequential, Mr. Lim said.

Ms. Brown said in her letter there is "no evidence that this toxic leachate will be harmless to Otter Creek and Lake Erie in 18 years. There is plenty of evidence that Envirosafe will be gone in 18 years, leaving the burden to our community."

The sites are near Otter Creek, which flows into western Lake Erie. The lake's western basin is the backbone of the region's multibillion-dollar fishing and boating industries, in addition to being the raw source of drinking water for Toledo and other communities.

Mr. Lim said officials in Oregon have misunderstood the agency's intent.

The old Fondessy pits were closed before the modern era of landfill regulations began in 1984, when amendments to the national Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 gave the U.S. EPA its authority to restrict disposal of hazardous waste. Ohio and other states were required from that point on to develop strategies for addressing older landfills.

Envirosafe agreed in a September accord with the Ohio EPA to reduce the fluid buildup with leachate pumps.

The three former Fondessy pits predate four of Envirosafe's cells that have been closed since 1994: Pits known as Cell F, Cell G, Cell H, and Cell I. Leachate has been pumped out of the latter four for the last 12 years.

Mr. Lim said the Ohio EPA simply is trying to streamline its own bureacracy by putting most pits on the same review schedule over the next 18 years. Cell M will be assessed separately.

Oregon officials claim the state EPA is being too lenient.

Mr. Lim conceded the sites are unlikely to be rendered harmless in 18 years. Results on leachate extracted from Cells F, G, H, and I show little sign of improvement in 12 years, he said.

Ms. Brown said Oregon could be in trouble "if we don't stay on top of it and force the issue.

"Like anything else, it's a money game," she said.

Contact Tom Henry at: thenry@theblade.com or 419-724-6079.