This article appeared on vtdigger.org By Emma Cotton
March 8, 2024
A new pilot project at the state’s only operating landfill, designed to remove harmful chemicals from leachate, malfunctioned in February and spilled thousands of gallons of the toxic liquid, according to state records.
The spilled leachate — liquid that comes from trash — was contained within the boundaries of the landfill property and did not enter directly into local waterways, according to Jeff Weld, a spokesperson for Casella. The incident occurred on the morning of Feb. 24, he said.
The pilot project that malfunctioned is designed to filter leachate to remove PFAS, a class of chemicals that do not easily break down in the environment and are linked to a number of harmful health conditions. From there, the leachate is trucked to municipal wastewater processing facilities, including in Montpelier, and processed.
From the outside, the installation looks like a trailer in a large tent, according to Josh Kelly, solid waste program manager at Vermont’s Department of Environmental Conservation. It’s built on top of an excavated area lined with plastic and filled with gravel, designed to catch liquids in the event of a spill.
That infrastructure captured 5,854 gallons of the nearly 8,700 gallons that spilled, according to a summary of the incident that Casella officials submitted to the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation.
The other 2,845 gallons were captured by stormwater collection infrastructure, but only after the spill ran across a road that runs through Casella’s property.
Casella workers pumped all of the liquid that had been collected back into the landfill’s leachate tank. They also conducted other remediation work, including removing 800 yards of sediment and material as a precaution and placing it in the landfill.
“Most of it was completed on Saturday, and by the time our staff got there on Monday, there wasn’t evidence of leachate in the stormwater ponds,” Kelly said. “You couldn’t see it or smell it.”
Casella officials are conducting tests to determine whether the leachate — which contains a number of toxic substances in addition to PFAS — has contaminated soil on the property.
Controversial project
In recent years, state regulators have required Casella to treat leachate to remove PFAS because municipal facilities that treat leachate have not installed the expensive and new technologies to remove PFAS themselves. As a result, the substance can be discharged into local waterways.
Casella is piloting a treatment technology called foam fractionation. Leachate, which collects below the landfill in heavy-duty plastic liners, is piped through a system that adds foam to the mix.
PFAS molecules are attracted to the foam, which is then skimmed off the top of the liquid. Landfill employees then mix the PFAS-containing foam with concrete and place it back in the landfill.
The project has been controversial from the beginning. Some environmental groups have long said that the landfill is located in an ecologically sensitive location, near Lake Memphremagog. For this reason, they believe the landfill should be closed, and they have viewed the pilot project as a continuation of long-term investment in the location.
Representatives of environmental groups, including the Conservation Law Foundation and the advocacy organization Don’t Undermine Memphramegog’s Purity, or DUMP, have also said they don’t believe foam fractionation is the best method to remove PFAS from leachate.
Some of the groups have expressed concerns about the process surrounding the project. Recently, the Conservation Law Foundation alleged that Casella moved forward with the project before it had full approval from the state.
“This whole system, which has huge risks — it’s incredibly important to get it right,” Nora Bosworth, a staff attorney for the foundation’s Zero Waste project, told VTDigger in an interview after the spill. “We want to treat PFAS, but we want to do it right.”
Now those groups believe the spill validates their concerns.
“This is exactly the type of calamity that community members feared,” Bosworth said in a press release about the spill issued by the Conservation Law Foundation. “Casella has a responsibility to ensure the health and safety of the community in all of its operations. The company has failed in that duty.”
Henry Coe, chair of DUMP, released a separate statement calling the event an “environmental crisis” and said it “occurred just as DUMP has feared.”
“DUMP strongly objects to the fact that the treatment system has been operating in violation of state law — without a permit yet being issued — for at least six months,” he said.
Weld, the Casella spokesperson, said the project has been successfully removing PFAS from leachate since it began operating in August 2023. He called the timing of the leak “super unfortunate,” citing positive results from the project so far.
“I think everybody should still be very excited about what we’re seeing,” he said, but added that he did not want to “minimize the malfunction and what happened.”
Casella has shut down the project until it can determine why its equipment malfunctioned and caused the leak. Weld said he expects the company to begin treating leachate for PFAS again in the summer.
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