Tremont City Landfill

Lydia Carlton
At 3108 Snyder Domer Road, Springfield Ohio, there are 51,500 barrels
of waste buried in unlined holes. Each barrel contains 55 gallons, 90% of
which contain complex mixed chemicals classified as hazardous waste. The
total estimated amount is over 3 million gallons. Some contain pesticides so
dangerous that they have been banned in the U.S., and others have chemical
concentrations that exceed the EPAs allowable drinking water standards by
hundreds to millions of times. Current U.S. EPA regulations prohibit the
burying of liquid hazardous waste, however, this was buried before the
standards were put in place. Since then the U.S. EPA of Chicago has made a
clean-up plan that will be financially covered by the companies that put the
waste there in the first place.
This plan is called Plan 9a. So long as the barrels are still intact, they
will be dug up and the liquids will be transported to a waste treatment
facility to be neutralized. Whatever is solid will be reburied on site in a newly
constructed landfill with a double liner at the base and a geomembrane top
covered by clay soil. The material will be determined a liquid of it passes
through a 60 mesh paint filter screen. If it does not pass through, it will be
determined as a solid, and remain on site. They should deteriorate in the
landfill without leaking and spreading and hurting local water sources. The
main problem with this plan is that the double liner will also deteriorate with
time.
There is a local group fighting for immediate removal of the waste,
called People For Safe Water. This is a community group whose goal it is to
raise awareness of the landfill and to pressure local government to take care
of it. They have also written multiple informational documents and packets to
inform others of the dangers of the landfill. Included in one of the documents
is a detailed report of exactly what chemicals are in the barrels, and to what
concentration and percentage.
My long term plan for the landfill goes along with Plan 9a from the EPA.
Step 1) Immediately, the barrels will be dug up, filtered, and the liquid waste
will be sent to a neutralization plant. However, I think that the solids should
not be reburied on site. They will go to an already existing, stable landfill.
Then local people will be notified to avoid the area so that they do not
breathe in toxic air. Step 2) Then, the contaminated soil will also be removed,
tested, and also sent to an existing landfill depending on contamination
levels. These steps can be completed within a year. Step 3) The following
year, the city water department needs to check the pipes surrounding the
old landfill to ensure that no waste got into the pipes. If so, they must be
replaced. Water chemical levels should be monitored during the whole
process. Step 4) For the next 10 years, the water and soil levels will be
checked semi-annually to ensure that it is still clean, and that no lingering
chemicals have remained.