Eternal waste

Trash has to go somewhere

By JUSTIN SCHNEIDER

In the minds of most consumers, the things we buy cease to exist the moment we throw them away.

But the second those coffee grounds, scraps of paper and food wrappers hit the bottom of a Hefty bag, a new saga begins. Now, more than ever, Madison County residents are thinking about what happens to the things they throw away.

The Indiana Department of Environment Management and JM Corp. are currently in negotiations over the proposed Mallard Lake landfill, a matter of heated debate for more than a quarter of a century.

“Most of the landfills that are built use newer designs. If Mallard Lake didn’t have a 30-year-old grandfathered-in permit, it would not be permitted today,” said Helen Wean, former president of the Killbuck Concerned Citizens Association, who has led the fight against the landfill since 1979. “It’s not big enough, it’s too close to the airport, it’s too close to homes.”

On the other side is Ralph Reed of JM Corp., who insists his endeavor is business as usual for a consumer culture that necessitates a $40 billion-a-year waste removal industry, according to Waste News (www.wastenews.com).

“We saw a need back 27 years ago,” Reed said. “We had the trash contract for the city of Anderson and we saw a need for a landfill. We got tied up in court on the zoning and some other things. Back then, landfills were mostly a dirt-moving job. But it’s a business and if it’s run right, it can be profitable for everyone.”

Since 1996, Madison County has steadily generated between 170,000 and 190,000 tons of waste, IDEM reported. That number peaked at 187,423 tons in 2001 and fell to 169,789 the following year. In 2004, Madison County generated 174,710 tons of waste.

All the trash generated in the city of Anderson is collected by Republic Services Corp. and taken to a transfer station on Columbus Avenue. From there, most of it is taken north to Wabash Valley Landfill in Wabash County, one of dozens of landfills scattered around the state.

Officials from Republic could not be reached for comment.

The distance to Wabash is six times greater than the Madison County landfill at Orestes, which operated for more than 20 years before closing in September 1992. But the county is still sinking money into the facility.

“Right now, IDEM is requiring us to test the groundwater one more time under their rules and to test the gas vent wells a few more times until we get clean samples,” said Madison County Engineer Chuck Leser. “The landfill will produce methane gas for a certain amount of time, normally 10 to 15 years. The wells show above-normal levels, above what they want to see.”

While the levels are nowhere near dangerous, Leser said IDEM is waiting to ease the restrictions on the defunct Madison County landfill.

The county, in turn, is waiting for a proposal from Keramida Environmental Inc., an Indianapolis-based company that has done all the water testing at the landfill, for the next round of testing. He said IDEM insists on the most thorough safety testing for recently closed landfills, but as a facility produces adequate results over time, those safeguards are relaxed.

That could mean substantial cost savings.

Madison County currently spends an average of $10,000 for annual maintenance at Orestes, plus $25,000 for sophisticated water testing. If IDEM approves a less stringent testing process, the second number could be reduced.

IDEM divides solid waste facilities into two broad categories: land disposal facilities and processing facilities. There are four types of land disposal facilities: municipal solid waste landfills, construction-demolition sites, restricted waste sites (types 1 through 4) and non-municipal solid waste landfills. Processing facilities include incinerators, transfer stations, solid waste balers, solid waste shredders, resource recovery systems and garbage grinding facilities.

Mallard Lake, like Wabash Valley and the facility at Orestes, is considered a municipal solid waste landfill.

Orestes halted operations nearly 14 years ago after it was filled, reaching a height of about 100 feet. A month later, workers began spreading grass seed and hay over the leveled trash pile and now grass grows across the enormous hill not-so-lovingly referred to as “Mount Orestes.”

Leser said “Mount Orestes” is changing, but in subtle ways.

“We’ve had some settlement over the last 14 years,” he said. “The center has settled, creating a depression on the top. We’ve talked to IDEM about it and we’re going to wait until it finishes settling.

“For the long-range, it will probably just sit there and be maintained by the county forever. There is nothing of value to go in and recycle. There’s also nothing bad in it.”

The county constantly tends to the grass growing over the landfill and uses a stone road to drive in and perform maintenance and inspections. Although the facility is well-maintained and was for much of its operation, its beginnings were less auspicious.

“It started as a dump,” said Leser. “When I say a dump, I mean anyone could pull in there, unload a truck and leave. There were no controls on it. They went in once a week with a bulldozer to flatten. IDEM and the county realized we needed to do something.”

Some, including Wean, consider the Mallard Lake plan no better.

“It’s not Anderson’s trash. The (Mallard Lake) landfill must be built, under new designs and regulations, for a three-county district to be at least 300 acres,” said Wean, adding that JM Corp. only has a permit for a 13-acre landfill, not the 160-acre figure Reed has quoted. “The standard is antiquated. Nobody would build one like that.”

Reed said his facility will conform the same way as other facilities statewide.

“We’ve looked at other facilities and they all make the Subtitle D regulations,” Reed said, referring to the new standards set by IDEM. “They all basically run the same.”

As of IDEM’s 2004 Solid Waste Report, Indiana was home to 36 municipal solid waste landfills, 26 privately owned and 10 publicly owned. In 2004, the Newton County Landfill — the largest in the state by annual dumping — took in nearly 1.7 million tons.

Reed hoped to add another one when he purchased the property at the corner of County Roads 300 East and 300 North. He approached it from a business standpoint and has admitted publicly that if he should get permission to push the Mallard Lake project forward — a project that has already cost JM Corp. $3.5 million — he plans to sell it.

Wean said the bottom line is greed.

“It’s a huge industry. A multi-billion dollar business,” Wean said. “Garbage people are the richest people in the world. When he sells Mallard Lake it will be the landfill lottery. It’s going to go to the highest bidder because it’s going to be someone from out-of-state.”

Indiana accepted more than 2.5 million tons of out-of-state waste in 2004, according to IDEM, but Reed said Mallard Lake will most likely serve central Indiana.

“There is very little out-of-state trash coming to Indiana,” Reed said. “A few years back they were yelling about trash from Pennsylvania and New York, but all that dried up. Price dictates where they take it and it’s a long way from New York to haul their trash out here. There’s very little trash coming into Indiana, it’s just around the perimeter.”

Many have suggested that the region simply does not need another landfill. Recent expansions projects at Jay County Landfill and Randolph (County) Farms Landfill have seen the addition of scores of acres.

“Somebody has the city of Anderson thinking that we are out of landfill space,” Wean said. “With the areas we presently take our garbage to, we don’t even need this thing.”

In its 2004 Solid Waste report, IDEM stated that Wabash Valley had only about 500,000 cubic yards of capacity remaining and that the facility would stay open for less than a year. But Wabash Valley has since been expanded to accommodate more tonnage.

“Every landfill is expanding, that doesn’t negate a thing,” Reed said. “It still costs money to haul trash around. Mallard Lake started out as a landfill for Madison County and Muncie and that’s probably what it will end up being.”

According to Connie Smith, public information officer for Anderson, the city pays Republic Services of Indiana $1.7 million per year to remove residents’ trash. The fee comes out of property taxes.

Reed claims Anderson’s cost for waste removal will decrease if the Mallard Lake landfill becomes a reality.

“Republic is hauling this up 50 or 60 miles to Wabash; they’re even hauling some to Terre Haute,” Reed said. “The county has got about 200,000 tons a year including the city of Anderson. Whoever the user is is paying about $2 million a year in this county. Transfer stations pay about $40 a ton, so it’s about a 25 percent surcharge. People think to haul trash costs nothing, but it’s just as much to haul trash as it is to haul a ton of steel or anything else.”

But city officials say any such sentiment is speculative, at best.

“Our trash goes to the Wabash landfill and this landfill in the county (Mallard Lake) would not have any impact on our trash fees,” said Rob Sparks, chairman of the Anderson Board of Public Works. “We have a contract with a provider that has their own place to dump.

“There would not be any impact by having a shorter distance to transport. I don’t believe it’s going to benefit the taxpayers by having a local landfill at all.”

Reed said the lifespan of Mallard Lake will depend on volume, but he would expect the facility to last 25 to 30 years. In addition to the 160 acres immediately available, Reed said he has another 80 acres for possible expansion.

In addition to being a long-term tool for Madison County, Reed maintains, Mallard Lake has the opportunity to bring in dollars from neighboring communities where waste facilities have reached capacity.

“A lot of these haulers own landfills and as they start to fill up, we will pick up trash from other areas,” Reed said. “Indianapolis has a lot of trash. I’ve heard rumors through the grapevine that they’re thinking of closing the incinerator there. They ran it for a lot of years then they had trouble with clean air and what it costs to replace them is more than it’s worth.”

Although Reed has publicly acknowledged his plans to sell Mallard Lake should it be approved, he declined to say what kind of dollar figure he will seek.

“The trash business in the last few years has gotten to be big business,” Reed said. “They came up with the figure of 2 1/2 pounds per day, which comes to almost a ton of trash per person. The people who are fighting against it want it in somebody else’s backyard.”

Americans actually generate about 4 1/2 pounds of trash per person per day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. But the truth remains that no one wants to see or smell it.

Wean, along with the Killbuck Concerned Citizens Association, Anderson Community Schools, Anderson Municipal Airport and a cadre of anxious residents certainly don’t want it in their backyard, but Reed calls them unrealistic. Everyone generates trash, he said, and opponents of Mallard Lake need to come to grips with the reality of waste disposal.

“One day my boy was running trash and he was having one of his bad days. The thing with picking up trash is that you can’t quit,” Reed said. “He said ‘There’s so many tons a day and there will be twice that much tomorrow. It never stops.’ I can’t understand people getting irate about a landfill.”

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