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BETHLEHEM -- Even as it is planning to apply to the state for operating permission for a new landfill cell, Casella Waste Systems is facing questions in Bethlehem, Vermont, and New York about its solid waste disposal business practices.
According to New Hampshire state regulators, North Country Environmental Services (operator of the Trudeau Road landfill) is over capacity at its current landfill cell, and is putting new waste material into "airspace" for which the company does not have an operating permit.
Since August, Department of Environmental Services permitting official Mike McCluskey said this week, NCES has been putting new trash on the slopes of Stages I and II where eventually, if the state gives operating permission, Stage III waste will go.
DES directed NCES to apply for a permit modification to allow this excess disposal, but so far, the company hasn't produced the necessary financial assurances to meet the permit requirements, McCluskey said.
And, while McCluskey acknowledged that allowing such unpermitted waste disposal is "not normal" procedure for DES, the department is loath to cease the operation "because of the reliance of the North Country on that facility." Many area towns dispose of their trash at the NCES landfill.
Meanwhile, Casella indicated to investors last month that as soon as Stage III is permitted, it would vastly increase the tons per days it takes into Bethlehem.
In a conference call with analysts and investors, a Casella official stated that business at Trudeau Road "has been off by approximately $300,000-$400,000 per month" because of diminished space as the current cell filled. With a new permit for Stage III, the official continued, the company would "ramp up" to 1,000 tons a day from the current average of under 600.
But this potential new disposal level raised red flags for watchdog group Environmental Action for Northern New Hampshire (EA). The permitted disposal level for Stage III is an average of 2,700 tons a week, only a little over half of what Casella indicated it would take. At that rate, EA reasoned, the landfill would only last a couple of years, and not the 4.5 years mandated in the state permit. The group raised the issue with DES, which in turn questioned Casella.
Casella responded by clarifying that the increase to 1,000 tons a day would be temporary and that it intends "to stay within the guidelines" set in the permit, according to a letter to DES.
EA members say they will be listening to the next Casella teleconference to see if the company clarifies this disposal rate with its investors. Newbury Landfill questioned Casella is also facing controversy across the Connecticut River in Vermont.
As reported Sunday in the Rutland Herald and picked up by wire services and radio stations in both Vermont and New Hampshire, the company is challenging a state order to cap an old unlined landfill that is contaminating groundwater.
The landfill is in Wells River, a village of the town of Newbury. Casella bought the Newbury Waste Management landfill in 1988. In 1993, the state Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) ordered that unlined landfills, including the one in Newbury, be closed and capped. A year later, the state took Casella to court for failing to cap the site. Casella was fined $68,500 and required to implement a water quality monitoring program.
Since then, groundwater test wells have shown that the Newbury landfill "is polluting the groundwater," according to the state. Iron and manganese exceed drinking water standards, and some volatile organic compounds have reached levels that Vermont calls "early warning that something may be amiss," according to the ANR.
Earlier this year, the agency also determined that an orange "seep" emerging from the ground and running into the Wells River is also polluted by the old landfill.
Correspondence between the ANR and Casella reveals that Casella offered to buy land in the vicinity, including a dairy farm where the seep is found, but landowners refused. Casella also offered to dig up the old waste and put it in a new lined landfill, but the ANR rejected that option as taking too long to be practical. The agency gave Casella until Nov. 15 to submit a capping plan, but the company has challenged this order.
The Herald quoted a Casella attorney as saying that the preferred action is to let pollution levels reduce over time, rather than installing a $1million cap. But another Casella official hastened to tell The Courier Tuesday that "doing nothing is not an option."
According to spokesperson Joe Fusco, "We want to sit down with the state and figure out what is the best solution. A cap may be the answer, but let's make sure." Another alternative may be to install extraction wells, he said.
NY fines Casella
The negative news continued for Casella in New York. The Associated Press reported Monday that the company allowed recyclables to end up as ordinary landfill trash. The state ordered Casella and two subsidiaries to repay $90,000 to customers who paid for but did not receive recycling services.
Speaking for Casella, Fusco said that the firm worked with the NY attorney general's office on an agreement defining the repayment and a code of conduct and other measures for trash haulers.
"We have no disagreement the recycling needs to be strengthened in the state," Fusco said. Casella has acquired many small trash haulers in New York, he explained, and "some fell through the cracks" on quality assurance.
In Bethlehem, news of the polluted seep in Newbury and the recyclables ending up in New York landfills sounded familiar to EA spokesperson Judy Wallace.
"We've been watching [Newbury] for a long time," she said this week. "It's frightening that they're fighting the cap because of cost."
The Newbury seep, she noted, "sounds exactly like the one we have here." An orange seep oozes out of a bank along the Ammonoosuc River down hill from the Trudeau Road landfill.
And in July, according to Wallace, an EA member photographed large rolls of paper dumped in the landfill. The group considers these recyclable materials.
"They say there's no room at the inn," another EA member commented, referring to Casella's cutting back waste disposal amounts this summer and fall, "and then there's a recyclable right at the top of the heap. It tells you a lot."
EA sent the photos to DES, but the agency has not responded. "We want to
encourage recycling, but it's not mandatory," McCluskey said. "Some customers may also
prefer that an item not be recycled," he suggested.