Landfill loses ground
The Canton Repository
PIKE TWP - In May, the Stark County Board of Health renewed the operating permit for the Countywide landfill in Pike Township for the rest of the year. Before the vote, Health Commissioner William Franks said his investigation of Countywide had focused on these areas: Did the landfill pose an imminent or long-term threat to public health or the environment; what state laws has the landfill violated; can it ever be brought back into compliance?
Franks' recommendation to keep Countywide open, and the board's unanimous decision to do so, meant essentially this: They believed that Countywide's owners had done, were doing and would do enough to ensure that the landfill would operate safely. Obviously they couldn't see into the future. But developments this week call the assessment into question.
Ohio EPA Director Chris Korleski said in a letter Monday that his agency believes that the underground fire the landfill has been battling has spread throughout the facility's original 88 acres. Installing a firebreak is essential, he wrote, "to protect human health, safety and the environment." Doing an inadequate job of this "may result in the current working face and permitted expansion area being consumed by fire."
Countywide's submitting to EPA a plan to control the fire - which landfill officials maintain is instead a chemical reaction - was part of the permit renewal process. If EPA is right, the landfill has lost ground in controlling and ending the problem that has damaged the quality of life for residents in the surrounding area. That has to be a serious consideration for local authorities as the end of the year approaches.
PIKE TWP - In May, the Stark County Board of Health renewed the operating permit for the Countywide landfill in Pike Township for the rest of the year. Before the vote, Health Commissioner William Franks said his investigation of Countywide had focused on these areas: Did the landfill pose an imminent or long-term threat to public health or the environment; what state laws has the landfill violated; can it ever be brought back into compliance?
Franks' recommendation to keep Countywide open, and the board's unanimous decision to do so, meant essentially this: They believed that Countywide's owners had done, were doing and would do enough to ensure that the landfill would operate safely. Obviously they couldn't see into the future. But developments this week call the assessment into question.
Ohio EPA Director Chris Korleski said in a letter Monday that his agency believes that the underground fire the landfill has been battling has spread throughout the facility's original 88 acres. Installing a firebreak is essential, he wrote, "to protect human health, safety and the environment." Doing an inadequate job of this "may result in the current working face and permitted expansion area being consumed by fire."
Countywide's submitting to EPA a plan to control the fire - which landfill officials maintain is instead a chemical reaction - was part of the permit renewal process. If EPA is right, the landfill has lost ground in controlling and ending the problem that has damaged the quality of life for residents in the surrounding area. That has to be a serious consideration for local authorities as the end of the year approaches.
