A common sense test could protect the public, taxpayers, LCSWMA, and the City of Harrisburg.
For various legal, economic, and other dysfunctional reasons, this real-world test seems to be the last thing Harrisburg and Lancaster officials want to do.
Existing state environmental law falls short in protecting the public or taxpayers in the pending Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority (LCSWMA) and Harrisburg Authority incinerator deal, those familiar with the proposed arrangement say.
A relatively simple and inexpensive test would go a long way to protecting the safety and peace of mind of the public, taxpayers, and future solvency of the City of Harrisburg and LCSWMA in the pending incinerator deal, environmental experts and observers close to the deal contend.
The simple and common sense test involves drilling down through the massive ash fields and collecting samples of the liquid, or leachate, resting on the thick layers of liner at the bottom of the ash.
At issue is whether decades of burning garbage and hazardous waste at the incinerator left behind a dangerous residue at the bottom of the massive ash fields, or elsewhere on and off the site.
Bringing up the samples of the leachate and testing them for dangerous toxins could literally get to the bottom of the controversy.
For various legal, economic, and other dysfunctional reasons, this real-world test seems to be the last thing Harrisburg and Lancaster officials want to do.
A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources (DEP) tells me such a leachate sample test is, quite amazingly, not required for old incinerators like that in Harrisburg, though existing law likely would require it for a new facility.
Section 271.126 of the Pennsylvania Code, titled Municipal Waste Management, describes a, “Requirement for environmental assessment.”
The law reads, an “application for a municipal waste disposal or processing permit shall include an environmental assessment on a form prescribed by the Department.”
“The section of the regulations that you cite involve permitting a new facility,” Kevin Sunday, spokesperson for the DEP tells me. “Transferring the permit to a new (owner) would not require an environmental assessment. Also, the regulations require the operator, not DEP, to conduct the assessment in cases where such assessments are needed (i.e., permitting a new facility)”
Even so, Sunday points out, LCSWMA, the City of Harrisburg and the Harrisburg Authority may be liable for cleanup costs if toxic pollution is found after the incinerator sale goes through.
“When transferring a permit,” Sunday adds, “the new permittee assumes most if not all liabilities. In certain circumstances, the former owner and permittee of a facility may still be liable. That is something that gets determined on a case-by-case basis, based on the facts and applicable laws and statutes.”
Though details of the pending deal remain under wraps, it’s generally believed that LCSWMA’s landfill consultant, the ARM Group, has conducted only what’s called a “Phase 1” environmental assessment of parts of the site and its environs.
Lancaster Authority CEO Jim Warner told his board in July, 2011, “LCSWMA … met with (consulting engineers) ARM Group who will start looking into some different aspects. Though at this stage LCSWMA does not anticipate acquiring the land where the ash is currently located, LCSWMA plans to lease about 56 acres and all information about existing in-place ash will need to be evaluated to determine if there are opportunities to continue filling ash on that site. The characteristics of the ash will be needed as well; ARM is working on this.”
A Phase 1 environmental site assessment, or ESA, “is basically a literature search,” one environmental remediation expert tells me.
“The actual sampling of soil, air, groundwater and/or building materials is typically not conducted during a Phase I ESA,” explains a web resource. “The Phase I ESA is generally considered the first step in the process of environmental due diligence.”
A Phase I ESA is “not required but is considered best practice,” the environmental expert tells me. “A Phase 1 study usually concludes by stating the need, or not, for boring samples.”
In private transactions, a bank or lending institution almost certainly would require leachate boring samples before loaning any money to buy an old facility with severe environmental legacy problems like the Harrisburg incinerator, I’m told.
But LCSWMA plans to finance the deal not through a bank, but through the bond market, where different practices presumably may prevail.
Gathering leachate-boring samples also has the advantage of establishing what environmental engineers call a “baseline.” Boring samples would help establish how much pollution was already present when LCSWMA bought the facility.
The need to conduct boring samples and establish a baseline is essential, says Eric Epstein, a longtime environmental watchdog of the Harrisburg incinerator.
Epstein tells me, “Environmental issues associated with the operation of the Harrisburg Resource and Recovery Facility (incinerator) have been considerable and well documented. The plant operated out of compliance from 1974-1991 and compiled a checkered environmental history after 1991.
“Until recently the incinerator was also a poor performing facility.
“The site is not the same site it was in 1974. It is important to establish an environmental baseline in order to construct an informed closure plan that factors environmental, financial, life cycle and waste management costs. While there is some money available for cleanup costs, there needs to be a regular and revised true up mechanism to fully account for the final costs to close and remediate the Harrisburg Resource and Recovery Facility.
“The public is not fully aware of the details of the due diligence process, but it appears that none of the principals in the impending sale of the HRRF have conducted an updated environmental study. A timely scoping of the facility and it environs would go along way in predicting closure costs and establishing if the land can be recycled as a Brownfield site or is destined become a permanent landfill.
“Nevertheless, despite all the uncertainty, an updated judgment as to the environmental implications of the Harrisburg Resource Recovery Facility should be made prior to the sale of incinerator. Some uncertainty with respect to regulatory limits are embedded in a license transfer. Laws are not static and waste by products can present long lived environmental and health challenges.
“The public should have reasonable confidence that environmental assumptions made by the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority will be proven correct since the buried treasure at the Harrisburg Resource and Recovery Facility may prove to be the next generation’s financial albatross.”
As we’ve reported at NewsLanc, documents at the state Department of Environmental Protection reveal that Harrisburg city officials for years illegally processed hazardous waste at the incinerator.
In 2000, an EPA administrator wrote that “there is no doubt that (the Harrisburg incinerator) is one of, and perhaps, the most significant single source of dioxins/furans in the United States.”
Wendi Taylor, a Harrisburg-area resident who for years fought to clean up the finances and pollution at the incinerator, commented to me by email, “In January 2002, … I wrote about the Harrisburg incinerator failing 57 of its 62 inspections. I recall asking DEP how they could allow an incinerator with such a record to continue to operate. The official said that because the incinerator was publicly owned, DEP felt that it should work with the city.”
The office of Harrisburg Receiver William Lynch is overseeing the current deal involving the sale of the incinerator to LCSWMA.
The receiver’s spokesperson, Cory Angell, tells me he is unfamiliar with the environmental issues with the incinerator, but that he is willing to look into them.
“I don’t know much about that,” Angell tells me.
Apparently, not many in Lancaster do, either.
It appears you and I may not be privy to all the important data and facts. I had an insurance agent that would always state “every man to his own trade”. By following this advice I am willing to accept the advice and leadership of Jim Warner and the Board of LCSWMA…