Environment officials worried years about type of aluminum waste now found at Countywide
BY Robert Wang
The Canton Repository
PIKE TWP - Countywide landfill accepted hundreds of thousands of tons of aluminum waste at a time when federal and state agencies were concerned about environmental problems that waste was causing elsewhere.
The waste is called aluminum dross. Countywide Recycling & Disposal Facility in Pike Township took in large amounts of it from a Barmet Aluminum foundry in Uhrichsville from 1993 through 2001.
Dross is a byproduct of aluminum smelting, and it contains heavy metals including chromium, manganese and iron. It is not listed as a hazardous waste by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
But a 1994 memo by an Ohio EPA staffer warns it “can not only create a nuisance, but is potentially harmful.”
“Aluminum dross has been known to ignite and even explode when freshly exposed to water,” the memo said, adding that it also can generate carbon monoxide, hydrogen and ammonia gas.
EPA spokesman Mike Settles said he doesn’t know the context in which the memo was written, and Countywide’s owner says the waste is better put underground in a well-run landfill than exposed to the elements.
But the EPA staffer, John Palmer, isn’t the only one who expressed concern about the dross.
Brantley Landfill was a four-acre landfill in McClean County, Ky., that got a permit to accept 250,000 tons of aluminum dross in 1979, according to the U.S. EPA. Though the landfill closed in 1980, residents complained of ammonia odor, and the U.S. EPA was detecting ammonia gas as late as 1986. “The waste was deposited below the water table, thus threatening ground water,” the federal EPA noted.
And Washington state authorities had concerns in the 1980s about aluminum waste stockpiled in an unlined landfill near Dallesport. “The waste material placed in the landfill produced ammonia gas when wet,” said a 2006 report by the Washington State Department of Ecology.
Still, Countywide’s current and previous owners said they didn’t expect the problems the aluminum waste is believed to have caused since last year.
Until 1998, Waste Management Systems owned the landfill. According to its spokeswoman, Beth Schmucker, when her company owned it and took in the dross, “Waste Management and the Ohio EPA and U.S. EPA had every reason to believe that the dross was safe.”
But an internal Countywide memo from 1993 on file with the Stark County Health Department noted that dross, also called salt cake, “when mixed with water, ammonia may be generated.”
EPA spokesman Settles agreed the dross could legally be disposed of in solid waste landfills — and it still is legal. But that may change.
“I think we’re going to have to explore this problem and see (if) some rule changes need to take place to prohibit this from solid waste landfills,” he said Friday.
Legal or not, Countywide’s current owner, Republic Services has stopped taking dross at all its landfills in the United States.
Though it disputes an Ohio EPA consultant’s characterization that Countywide is on fire underground, Republic acknowledges it has problems that stem from the dross in roughly 30 acres in the center of the landfill. The dross came in contact with percolated liquid waste called leachate that Countywide recirculated through the landfill, and that’s believed to have triggered heat, gas, intense odors and settling problems at Countywide since late 2005.
“Had we known that the aluminum dross would have reacted in a manner that it did at Countywide, we would have never recirculated the leachate,” said Republic spokesman Will Flower. “It was an unforeseen circumstance that occurred.”
Landfill critic Richard Harvey said no one should have been surprised.
“I was disturbed when I saw the EPA truly understood the severity of aluminum dross.... To say they didn’t know what would happen blows me away.”
The Canton Repository
PIKE TWP - Countywide landfill accepted hundreds of thousands of tons of aluminum waste at a time when federal and state agencies were concerned about environmental problems that waste was causing elsewhere.
The waste is called aluminum dross. Countywide Recycling & Disposal Facility in Pike Township took in large amounts of it from a Barmet Aluminum foundry in Uhrichsville from 1993 through 2001.
Dross is a byproduct of aluminum smelting, and it contains heavy metals including chromium, manganese and iron. It is not listed as a hazardous waste by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
But a 1994 memo by an Ohio EPA staffer warns it “can not only create a nuisance, but is potentially harmful.”
“Aluminum dross has been known to ignite and even explode when freshly exposed to water,” the memo said, adding that it also can generate carbon monoxide, hydrogen and ammonia gas.
EPA spokesman Mike Settles said he doesn’t know the context in which the memo was written, and Countywide’s owner says the waste is better put underground in a well-run landfill than exposed to the elements.
But the EPA staffer, John Palmer, isn’t the only one who expressed concern about the dross.
Brantley Landfill was a four-acre landfill in McClean County, Ky., that got a permit to accept 250,000 tons of aluminum dross in 1979, according to the U.S. EPA. Though the landfill closed in 1980, residents complained of ammonia odor, and the U.S. EPA was detecting ammonia gas as late as 1986. “The waste was deposited below the water table, thus threatening ground water,” the federal EPA noted.
And Washington state authorities had concerns in the 1980s about aluminum waste stockpiled in an unlined landfill near Dallesport. “The waste material placed in the landfill produced ammonia gas when wet,” said a 2006 report by the Washington State Department of Ecology.
Still, Countywide’s current and previous owners said they didn’t expect the problems the aluminum waste is believed to have caused since last year.
Until 1998, Waste Management Systems owned the landfill. According to its spokeswoman, Beth Schmucker, when her company owned it and took in the dross, “Waste Management and the Ohio EPA and U.S. EPA had every reason to believe that the dross was safe.”
But an internal Countywide memo from 1993 on file with the Stark County Health Department noted that dross, also called salt cake, “when mixed with water, ammonia may be generated.”
EPA spokesman Settles agreed the dross could legally be disposed of in solid waste landfills — and it still is legal. But that may change.
“I think we’re going to have to explore this problem and see (if) some rule changes need to take place to prohibit this from solid waste landfills,” he said Friday.
Legal or not, Countywide’s current owner, Republic Services has stopped taking dross at all its landfills in the United States.
Though it disputes an Ohio EPA consultant’s characterization that Countywide is on fire underground, Republic acknowledges it has problems that stem from the dross in roughly 30 acres in the center of the landfill. The dross came in contact with percolated liquid waste called leachate that Countywide recirculated through the landfill, and that’s believed to have triggered heat, gas, intense odors and settling problems at Countywide since late 2005.
“Had we known that the aluminum dross would have reacted in a manner that it did at Countywide, we would have never recirculated the leachate,” said Republic spokesman Will Flower. “It was an unforeseen circumstance that occurred.”
Landfill critic Richard Harvey said no one should have been surprised.
“I was disturbed when I saw the EPA truly understood the severity of aluminum dross.... To say they didn’t know what would happen blows me away.”
