Closed-door meeting set for troubled landfill
The Akron-Beacon Journal
BOLIVAR - The Stark County Health Department will begin its proceedings on a permit for the Countywide Recycling & Disposal Facility in southern Stark County with a closed-door meeting March 22.
Health department spokesman Kirk Norris made that announcement Friday at a meeting of the Stark-Tuscarawas-Wayne Joint Solid Waste Management District.
The proceedings to determine whether Countywide should get a 2007 operating permit from the health board will begin with what is called a health commissioner's hearing, Norris said. Present will be county health staff members, county Health Commissioner William Franks and representatives from Republic Waste Services of Ohio, the company that owns and operates the landfill, Norris said.
The staff members will present evidence to Franks, who will make a recommendation to the county health board. The health board will later hold full court-like proceedings open to the public on Franks' recommendation, Norris said.
Deborah Dawson, a Stark County assistant prosecutor who advises the health board, told the solid waste district's governing board that the health department is following its usual procedures in dealing with permits for landfills and that these hearings are legally closed to the public and the media.
Countywide needs the permit from the health department to continue to accept trash from 27 counties in northern Ohio. The landfill has been dealing with odor problems and an underground fire and chemical reaction.
Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Chris Korleski has recommended that the health board deny Countywide the operating permit because of the fire and odor problems at the 258-acre dump in Pike Township off Interstate 77 at the Stark-Tuscarawas county line.
A chemical reaction caused by aluminum waste coming into contact with liquid runoff is believed to have triggered high temperatures and odors at the landfill. The problem probably began in late 2005, according to Todd Thalhamer, a California-based landfill-fire expert hired by the Ohio EPA. Trash buried in the landfill also is smoldering, he said.
Korleski has begun negotiations with Countywide representatives on new findings and orders that would end the landfill's problems. The agency hopes to wrap up an agreement in the next 30 days. The company has pledged to work with the EPA to draft an agreement.
Such an agreement would keep the landfill open.
Tuscarawas County Commissioner Kerry Metzger said he was "very frustrated and quite disappointed'' with the EPA's plan to proceed with findings and orders that would keep Countywide open.
Metzger suggested that the solid waste district be involved in the negotiations, and he urged the EPA to consider hiring an independent company to collect data on Countywide.
The public would feel better if the landfill data came from an independent source, not Countywide, Metzger said.
The EPA plan relies on Republic Waste Services collecting data and providing it to the state.
