New Williston landfill dispute could end years of planning
For nearly 20 years a new, regional landfill has been planned for the Town of Williston. Currently, opposition to the proposed site from two citizen groups is meeting head on with defenders of the landfill, namely the Chittenden Solid Waste District and the Town of Williston.
Residents who live in the vicinity of the proposed landfill are waging a legal and public relations battle against the proposed landfill. The town defends its position as a host town saying it has a contractual obligation to CSWD. For its part CSWD says the landfill is necessary if Chittenden County is to meet the future needs of its citizens as they pertain to a place to put the county’s waste.
At the heart of the problem is the issue of long-term planning, especially when it involves unforeseen changes in demographics that place suburban housing in areas near to necessary, but property devaluating, public services.
Chittenden Solid Waste Districts Argument for A New Land Fill
Tom Moreau is general manager of CSWD. His office on Redmond Road is a short walk from the site of the pro-posed landfill, which will be sited at the Hinesburg Sand & Gravel Company’s property. There is little to distinguish this site as one that is so contentious and there are no signs attesting to its future use.
After years of wrangling over the price CSWD would pay the gravel company for its property, the Vermont Supreme Court recently settled the issue. Redmond Road lies near the Winooski River and the Town of Essex. There have been landfills here for years. Two previous landfills are now capped, their white vent pipes dot the otherwise green, grass covered fill. The pipes vent methane gas that, for the most part, is burned off before it reaches the atmosphere.
The old site is also picturesque and could one day become parkland. There won’t be housing built here any time soon and ground water quality here is tested regularly.
Currently the area hosts an operating waste transfer station where construction materials, as well as local trash, are brought for disposal. A pile of wood pallets is stacked several stories high and would make an impressive bonfire if ignited. The proposed landfill will be built on over 60 acres of sand and scrub woods and will help Vermont’s biggest county meet its solid waste needs, according to the CSWD general manager.
Moreau, a thin, serious man, knows hislandfill science and explained how the proposed site would work to improve waste removal in the county. He said the impetus for the new landfill was the passage, in 1987, of Vermont Act 78. That act, he noted, makes it “very clear that municipalities are responsible for solid waste.”
This Vermont law followed federal law. Act 78 encouraged regional groups to look at issues of waste disposal. Out of the legislation the 18 towns in the county formed CSWD and delegated solid waste issues to its management.
According to Moreau, CSVVD “looks at the options and we say we can do it better than can be currently provided,”.
He said the two privately operated landfills in Moretown and Coventry which opponents of the Williston site say are sufficient for waste, “meet the state regulations.” His argument for the new site is that he doesn’t “think those regulations are good enough.”
The proposed Williston landfill would be state of the art. Moreau said it would have a more robust liner system, be an active biogas collection and treatment system and would actively re-act the waste (breakdown organic matter in waste) while the liners are new. It is a multi-million project expected to cost between $20 and $50 million. Bonds will be issued to pay for the project.
According to Moreau, Vermont’s minimum landfill standards meet EPA standards but are not as tough as New York State’s standards. He wants Vermont to have the same standards as the Empire State.
“If I can do something to a higher standard we will, but we will not force it on the rest of the state. This is a local standards issue,” he explained.
“Our desire is to invoke a higher standard for land filling,” said Moreau. He said the 18 towns in CSWD don’t object to this higher standard. For its part, the Town of Williston, he said, is being silent so far. However their board member “is committed to a higher standard.”
Technology for the new landfill
The proposed landfill will surpass the sites in Moretown and Coventry in terms of its liner. Those sites have two layers of HDPE plastic while Williston would have a double composite liner with plastic and a significant layer of clay and would provide extra leakage protection.
It would also have an active biogas system. As Moreau explained, in Moretown in the current operating five-year cell, landfill gas disperses into the atmosphere. He said the problem is that the methane in the biogas causes greenhouse gases more potent than carbon dioxide. “Methane is 21 times as strong as CO.” After five years in Moretown, methane gas is burned off.
At the Coventry landfill the gas is collected and is burned producing electricity, however, after the cell is closed after five years, that gas will also spew into the atmosphere.
Moreau said Williston would have an active gas collection system with vacuum pumps.
“We’ll capture the biogas and burn it, then with sufficient quantities turn it into heat and power.”
The leachate normally trucked to a waste treatment plant will be recirculated here through the trash and go back into the top of the landfill. It will raise the moisture level in the trash to enhance what he called “degradation” thus making more gas. The site will, according to Moreau, “get commercial utilization of the gas and make the trash in the landfill less toxic.”
“We are going to do a lot on the sciences in order to make it a better business proposition,” asserts Moreau.
Local Opposition To The Landfill
Two citizens groups are opposed to the landfill. One, based in the Ledgewood Drive subdivision, a small community of 34 homes closest to the proposed site, has filed a law-suit against CSWD. Thirty-seven plaintiffs living and owning lots on Ledgewood Drive are seeking to invalidate a 1992 agreement in which town officials promised the town would host a regional landfill. The group represents 20 households.
The other, Vermont Organized Communities Against Landfills (VOCAL), is a local citizens’ group, which Brennan Woods subdivision resident Steve Casale heads. VOCAL is against the landfill for a variety of reasons.
Craig Abrahams lives in Ledgewood Drive and is leading the opposition to the landfill for his group.
His home is three years old in a development whose oldest homes are just seven years old. He said property values are not the issue in his opposition.
“The home values are less than 1 per-cent of this fight,” he contends.
According to Abrahams, his opposition stems from the fact that “the landfill is not necessary from a capacity standpoint.” His next argument is “with the town for non-disclosure.”
According to Abrahams, “We would be against any new landfills in the state of Vermont. There is no need for any landfill for capacity reasons.”
He bases this argument on the fact that the Coventry site has recently tripled its capacity from 170,000 to 420,000 tons per year, adding 250,000 tons of extra capacity. He said the entire CSWD waste stream annually is 144,000 tons.
“The new permitted capacity at Coventry more than offsets the CSWD waste stream. That is good for 20-25 years,” he argues.
According to Abrahams, Casella Waste Management owns or controls 965 additional acres at the Coventry site.
“When the 25 years of current capacity is used up they will go for permitting on additional acres,” he said.
Similarly, according to Abrahams, MG Insurance owns the Moretown site, and he said, “They have an additional 200 acres of adjoining land.”
The issue of noise from truck traffic to a Williston site is not a big one for the opponents.
“It’s far down on our list,” said Abrahams. “The trucks come here anyway for the transfer station. There won’t be an increase in truck traffic. There will be an increase in trucks leaving the site with sand and glacial till from the proposed landfill.”
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