=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #180
—May 9, 1990—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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COMMERCIAL HAZARDOUS WASTE LANDFILLS
Despite widespread recognition that all landfills leak and thus
contaminate the local environment, it is still common in the U.S.
to bury industrial poisons in the ground.
There are 21 commercial hazardous waste landfills in the U.S.
today; a “commercial” landfill takes wastes from anyone for a
fee. (There are also 35 non-commercial landfills run by
individual companies to handle their own wastes. In a future
article, we will discuss these 35 “captive” or “onsite” chemical
dumps.)
Of the 21 commercial chemical dumps operating today, 16 have
received their final Part B permits under the federal Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Five are awaiting approval
of a Part B and, in the meantime, are operating under “interim
status.”
Seven of the 21 have permits issued under the federal Toxic
Substances Control Act (TSCA), which allows them to bury PCBs
(polychlorinated biphenyls) in the ground. In the following
discussion, an asterisk next to the location of a dump means it
is licensed for PCB burial. A number inside square brackets
indicates the legally-permitted total capacity of the facility,
in cubic yards (if data are available).
The biggest chemical dumper is Chemical Waste Management, Inc.
(often called Chemwaste), a subsidiary of Waste Management, Inc.
of Oak Brook, IL. Chemwaste operates seven chemical dumps: at
Emelle, AL [2,145,733]; Calumet City, IL [3,000,000]; Fort Wayne,
IN [2,800,000]; Lake Charles, LA [5,300,000]; *Model City, NY
[850,000]; *Kettleman City, CA [5,700,000] (Kettleman Hills
Treatment Center); and Arlington, OR [2,180,000] (Chem-Security
Systems, Inc.).
Chemwaste is currently expanding its Model City dump and plans to
add a TSCA PCB license as soon as possible. Chemwaste has applied
for modifications to its Part B permits to expand its dumps at
Kettleman Hills, CA, and at Fort Wayne, IN. In addition,
Chemwaste plans to add a 500,000 cubic yard chemical dump at its
Port Arthur, TX, hazardous waste incinerator. This new dump would
principally accept toxic ash from the incinerator but would also
serve as a commercial chemical poison burial site.
CECOS, the hazardous waste subsidiary of BFI (Browning-Ferris
Industries), owns four chemical dumps but only two are operating
today; the CECOS dumps at Williamsburg, OH, and at Niagara Falls,
NY both had their Part B permit applications denied and are
shutting down. After this setback, BFI announced it would close
CECOS itself and get out of the business of burying chemical
poisons in the ground. This leaves unclear the future of their
one operating dump, at Livingston, LA, and their new, aptly-named
Last Chance dump near Denver, CO, which has a Part B permit but
hasn’t yet started accepting waste. No doubt they will try to
sell these dumps to someone like Chemwaste soon.
GSX Chemical Services operates two chemical dumps, one at
Pinewood, SC [135,000/yr], and one, which they are presenting
trying to expand, in Westmoreland, CA. GSX also has immediate
plans to expand an old dump, which is presently accepting only
petroleum wastes, in Kern County, CA.
Rollins Environmental Services operates dumps at Deer Park, TX,
and at Baton Rouge, LA; U.S. Pollution Control, Inc. buries
poisons in the ground at Grassy Mountain, *Tooele (or Murray), UT
[1,335,000], and at Fairview, OK [315,666]. Envirosafe Services
operates chemical dumps in Oregon, OH [5,900,000], and in
Grandview, ID [2,500,000]. U.S. Ecology has dumps in *Beatty, NV
[1,000,000], and at Robstown, TX (where they operate under the
name Texas Ecologists).
There are two privately held companies (which is to say, their
stock is not for sale to the public) in the chemical burial
business: Peoria Disposal at Pottstown, IL [2,400,000], and Wayne
Disposal at Bellville, MI. The Four County Landfill near South
Bend, IN, run by a third private company, Environmental Waste
Control, Inc., is presently not accepting waste. Wayne disposal
is seeking a license for a new dump, 15 miles south of Bellville,
MI, where they also hope to operate an incinerator.
Exciting new developments in the poison-burial business include
these: a new company, Hunter Environmental Services, through its
subsidiary, Hunter Industrial Facilities, Inc. (HIFI), is
developing an industrial park near Houston, TX, where they hope
to bury 100 million cubic yards of poisons in underground salt
domes. This would be by far the biggest poison dump in the world.
A HIFI representative says they will solidify the poisons in
concrete or fly ash, or whatever seems to work, before burial.
They hope to begin construction by October, 1990.
Westinghouse has also announced that their Environmental Systems
and Services Division plans to get into the poison burial
business within two or three years. A spokesperson for the
company says they have identified five or six sites around the
country suitable for burying toxins, but they have not yet
requested a RCRA permit for any of them. They say they hope to be
actually burying poisons in the ground within two or three years.
“Landfill disposal is a logical extension of the services we
provide right now and our goal is to become a full service
company. We feel we have the resources and the management
experience to enter that business and do it responsibly,” said
Vaughan Gilbert, a company spokesman. It is not clear what
constitutes “responsible” burial of chemical poisons in the
ground, since everyone, including the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, now agrees that all landfills eventually leak.
(See, for example, RHWN #37.) This issue aside, Westinghouse has
shown itself to be an innovator in the production and
distribution of toxins into the environment. They effectively
contaminated the entire town of Bloomington, Indiana with PCBs,
then proposed to clean up the community by burning the PCBs in an
incinerator, which they propose to fuel with municipal garbage.
Based on their record of performance to date, we feel sure that
communities will come out to meet them as they announce their new
poison burial plans in the next year or so.
Three states are currently siting new hazardous waste landfills:
Arizona has awarded a contract to ENSCO (an Arkansas company) to
build a full service treatment storage and disposal facility near
Phoenix. ENSCO has submitted a Part B application and a TSCA
permit for burying PCBs.
Minnesota has signed a contract with International Technology
Corporation (IT Corp) and Chem-Security of Canada to operate a
hazardous waste dump in the northwest portion of the state. The
capacity is reported to be 15,000 to 20,000 tons of waste each
year. Preliminary site selection is scheduled to begin in late
1990.
North Carolina is reportedly in the process of siting a full
service storage, treatment, and disposal facility with a capacity
of 10,000 tons per year, including a dump for toxic incinerator
ash.
It is interesting to note that 20 of these 21 landfills use high
density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic liners to try to protect the
local environment from contamination. On the shortcomings of
HDPE, see RHWN #117. The Rollins dump in Deer Park, TX, relies
entirely on clay. (On clay, see RHWN #125).
Of the 35 captive or on-site, non-commercial chemical dumps
operating today, more than half (18) are in Texas; West Virginia
has three; Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Indiana and Michigan
each have two; New Jersey, Illinois, and California each have
one. Overall, we note a high proportion of chemical poison dumps
in southern states.
During 1989, the nation’s 21 commercial chemical dumps buried
2.98 million tons of poisons; the 35 captive or on-site dumps
buried 680,000 tons.
This summary is based mainly on information appearing in the
February, 1990, issue of EI DIGEST a monthly magazine subtitled
Industrial and Hazardous Waste Management. EI DIGEST is available
for $350 per year from Environmental Information, Ltd., 4801 West
81st Street, Suite 119, Minneapolis, MN 55437; phone (612)
831-2473.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: hazardous waste landfilling; rcra; tsdrs; pcb
burial; cwmi; wmi; bfi; westinghouse; south; waste disposal
industry; pcbs; incineration; ash;