Pinewood landfill safe, consultants say

Consultants say South Carolina could save nearly $2 million a year by managing a closed lakeside hazardous waste dump more efficiently.

But among their recommendations is a plan to cut back on some of the pollution monitoring that was intended to detect leaks from the aging landfill.

A study presented to a skeptical panel of state senators Wednesday outlined changes that could reduce South Carolina’s annual cost for the site it inherited when landfill operator Safety Kleen filed for bankruptcy 15 years ago.

Because money left in the bankruptcy settlement is running out, the state faces an estimated $4 million annual tab for the next 90 years to manage the dump so the site won’t leak industrial poisons into Lake Marion. That totals $360 million in the next nine decades. Senators are looking for ways to pay the tab and protect the lake.

Overall, the Haley & Aldrich consulting report said the landfill is being well run, has not leaked and doesn’t threaten Lake Marion today.

“We did not find any current risk to human health or the environment,’’ David Hagen, a senior vice-president of the consulting firm, told a landfill study committee.

The state, however, could cut annual costs with some changes, the study said. The best way to do that is to reduce the amount of toxic water building up in the landfill. Changing treatment and management practices for the water, known as leachate, is worth consideration, the study said. At the same time, the study recommends reducing monitoring in some spots, particularly in aquifers that run deep below ground.

But the Haley & Aldrich report, a telephone-book sized document commissioned by state regulators, sparked plenty of questions Wednesday.

Several lawmakers and conservationists said they can’t imagine conducting less monitoring at a landfill so close to South Carolina’s largest recreational lake.

Lake Marion, at 110,000 acres, is popular with boaters and anglers, and is a drinking water source to thousands of people.

“Given the long-term liability that is there I don’t think I see the basis to decrease the monitoring,’’ said state Rep. James Smith, a Columbia Democrat and critic of the state’s environmental protection efforts. “I’m highly skeptical.’’

Democratic Sens. Thomas McElveen of Sumter and Kevin Johnson of Manning also had concerns, as did Ben Gregg, director of the S.C. Wildlife Federation. Gregg said the state’s priority should be protecting the lake.

“The number one goal should be on the environmental side, not the financial side,’’ he said.

South Carolina now uses a $1 million annuity left from the bankruptcy to help pay for management, but another fund used to help pay the rest of the approximately $5 million in annual maintenance and management costs is near depletion. It has dwindled to about $6 million from $35 million, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control

Safety Kleen’s old landfill, a 45 minute drive southeast of Columbia in rural Sumter County, has been a source of criticism since the public became aware of the site. It opened quietly in 1978 at a closed cat litter mine just 1,200 feet from Lake Marion.

The dump was initially run with the help of former state regulators, who had switched sides to work for the landfill’s operator. The disposal site took millions of tons of hazardous waste from 1978 until it closed in 2000. That material includes toxins such as PCBs, mercury and solvents.

These days, the biggest issue is how to manage the property. Even though it is closed and capped over, toxic water that builds up in the landfill must be pumped out, treated and disposed of. Liners beneath the landfill are getting old and concerns are rising among some folks that a leak could pollute the lake – particularly from the oldest section, which contains only a single synthetic liner.

Former landfill manager Bill Stephens has said the state needs to take aggressive action to make sure the aging landfill does not leak into nearby Lake Marion. But the state Department of Health and Environmental Control says more than $20 million in extra expenditures he has suggested aren’t needed because the dump isn’t leaking.

In an attempt to resolve the stalemate, DHEC hired Haley & Aldrich to conduct an independent study. The company, headquartered in the Midwest, appeared to support the agency in the report released Wednesday. Hagen said his company looked at reports Stephens produced, but did not interview him for its site assessment.

“What Mr. Stephens left ... was very alarming,’’ Johnson, said. “Are we saying that information, whatever it contains, was not accurate and what we have now is more accurate?”

Summarizing the report, Hagen told senators that contaminants from the landfill would not move rapidly because the area’s geology would not allow it.

“It is going to take time for a contaminant … released to groundwater to get out and get to the lake in my opinion,’’ Hagen said

The study also said that if a liner did tear open, there isn’t enough water pressure to force contaminated leachate outside the site and into surrounding groundwater. Instead, groundwater likely would leak into the landfill through an opening, the report said.

Hagen said the site, with some 200 test wells, goes “above and beyond’’ monitoring that is required. The report said the state could make short term and long term improvements to the landfill if it chose to. Improvements could cost any where from $600,000 to $10 million, depending on how South Carolina wants to proceed.

Among the possible improvements:

▪  Seal openings in the top of the landfill that are suspected of allowing rainwater to leak into the dump and build up inside the closed burial pits. That could cost $100,000, but could allow site operators to reduce staff now needed to manage the water. The leachate water has been growing annually by 43,000 gallons annually for the past decade in the landfill’s oldest section.

▪  Instead of using a dried slurry system for treating leachate, the state should examine whether to spend $1.3 million to replace the dryer system that has made the leachate system inefficient. That could save $50,000 annually in air monitoring and maintenance costs.

▪  Store and treat less contaminated leachate water differently than the more highly contaminated leachate water. Hagen said some of the leachate is little more than unpolluted rainwater and doesn’t require aggressive treatment used for the contaminated water.

This story was originally published May 13, 2015 at 12:08 PM with the headline "Pinewood landfill safe, consultants say."