Ohio EPA should continue to take landfill issues seriously
The Canton Repository
PLAIN TOWNSHIP - I commend our new Ohio EPA director, Chris Korleski, for consulting with the more progressive California EPA regarding the potential underground fire at Countywide landfill (“EPA chief inspects ‘unique circumstance’ at landfill,” Feb. 3). It has been years since we have seen anything proactive done by this agency.
I hope this desire to obtain the best available science will continue at OEPA. However, I am concerned by what appear to be false assurances being given to the area residents regarding the groundwater contamination if the liner becomes damaged and toxins are able to leak from the site.
The Feb. 11 article “Experts say landfill fire would pose some risks” stated that according to an EPA spokesman, if this scenario occurs, “... the landfill has “a ring of monitoring wells, which are sampled twice a year, that would detect any contaminants trying to escape. ...”
Right. Then what? You are talking to the choir on this one, from our 24 years’ experience at Uniontown IEL dump, where, when contaminants including radiation were found, the answer was to simply seal 33 of the wells to prevent further sampling, allowing the toxins to flush into the area’s aquifer.
I see a similar fate for Countywide in the next sentences of the article, when it was stated, “Also, an EPA hydrologist said the water fields for Canton and Bolivar are uphill from the landfill, ...” To heck with any poor residents who may be on private wells in the flow path.
I can just hear the EPA now: The toxin levels pose no health threat off-site, etc. And once again, the watershed gets more chemicals added, albeit diluted, from yet another leaking landfill.
Let’s hope OEPA begins taking a real source-water protection stance with this new administration, for the sake of all Ohioans who rely on groundwater, whether from city wells or private. It would be refreshing to see protection of public health take priority.
CHRIS BORELLO, PLAIN TOWNSHIP
PRESIDENT, CONCERNED CITIZENS OF LAKE TOWNSHIP
PLAIN TOWNSHIP - I commend our new Ohio EPA director, Chris Korleski, for consulting with the more progressive California EPA regarding the potential underground fire at Countywide landfill (“EPA chief inspects ‘unique circumstance’ at landfill,” Feb. 3). It has been years since we have seen anything proactive done by this agency.
I hope this desire to obtain the best available science will continue at OEPA. However, I am concerned by what appear to be false assurances being given to the area residents regarding the groundwater contamination if the liner becomes damaged and toxins are able to leak from the site.
The Feb. 11 article “Experts say landfill fire would pose some risks” stated that according to an EPA spokesman, if this scenario occurs, “... the landfill has “a ring of monitoring wells, which are sampled twice a year, that would detect any contaminants trying to escape. ...”
Right. Then what? You are talking to the choir on this one, from our 24 years’ experience at Uniontown IEL dump, where, when contaminants including radiation were found, the answer was to simply seal 33 of the wells to prevent further sampling, allowing the toxins to flush into the area’s aquifer.
I see a similar fate for Countywide in the next sentences of the article, when it was stated, “Also, an EPA hydrologist said the water fields for Canton and Bolivar are uphill from the landfill, ...” To heck with any poor residents who may be on private wells in the flow path.
I can just hear the EPA now: The toxin levels pose no health threat off-site, etc. And once again, the watershed gets more chemicals added, albeit diluted, from yet another leaking landfill.
Let’s hope OEPA begins taking a real source-water protection stance with this new administration, for the sake of all Ohioans who rely on groundwater, whether from city wells or private. It would be refreshing to see protection of public health take priority.
CHRIS BORELLO, PLAIN TOWNSHIP
PRESIDENT, CONCERNED CITIZENS OF LAKE TOWNSHIP
