Tension over landfill cracks
The Akron Beacon Journal
BOLIVAR - Concerns were raised Friday about potential landslides at a landfill next to Interstate 77 in southern Stark County.
However, a spokesman for the owner of the Countywide Recycling & Disposal Facility in Pike Township said there is no problem.
At a meeting of the governing board of the Stark-Tuscarawas-Wayne Solid Waste Management District, Club 3000, a Bolivar-based grass-roots organization, brought up the issue of tension cracks at the landfill.
Club 3000 has been unhappy with landfill construction and has complained to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency since 1999 to no avail, said group spokesman Tom O'Dell.
The organization is ''not surprised'' by the EPA's warnings, O'Dell said.
Will Flower, a spokesman for landfill owner Republic Waste Services, said the 258-acre landfill ''is safe, is secure, is sound and is stable.''
In an Aug. 22 letter, the EPA noted that tension cracks along the landfill's west wall might pose a landslide threat.
The agency directed the company to install devices to gauge whether the soil is slipping around the 88-acre tract where underground fires and odors have been a problem. It also urged the company to consider installing engineering supports to prevent landslides.
The company should be prepared to take action if evidence turns up any likelihood of soil movement, the EPA warned.
Flower said cracks ''are a normal everyday thing at landfills . . . and not a problem.''
Cracks occur when buried garbage settles, the company said in a two-page media advisory released on Friday.
The company's engineers have monitored the cracks observed by the EPA for more than a year, Countywide said.
The cracks are attributed to settlement in the center of the 88-acre area and not to slope instability at the outer edges, the company said.
The largest crack has opened a half-inch in two weeks, Countywide said.
TAKING PRECAUTIONS
Company engineers have installed 66 iron pins on the west slope that are analyzed for position three times a week, the company said, and those pins indicate no movement that would indicate slope instability.
The west border of the landfill is along I-77, which is used by an estimated 32,000 motorists a day.
There is a 1,000-foot clearance between the landfill and I-77, as well as a perimeter berm atop the west wall that is 100 feet wide. That berm far exceeds any lateral movement that has occurred anywhere on the site, the company said, and provides substantial protection against any movement of waste off the site.
Countywide said it has installed two inclinometers devices to measure soil movement but attempts to install additional ones requested by the EPA have failed in some areas.
The company also said it has analyzed the EPA's suggestion for putting in an engineered soil buttress at the toe of the west slope to support it but feels that such an installation is unnecessary right now.
The company said it is confident that there will be enough time to install such a support should signs of instability appear.
It said it will work with the EPA to prove that the landfill is stable and not a threat.
View related articles:
