Latest news with #SolidWasteManagementAct
New Indian Express
29-05-2025
- General
- New Indian Express
Chennai to fine vacant landowners up to Rs 25,000 for poor upkeep; daily penalty follows
CHENNAI: Property owners who fail to comply with the new corporation guidelines for maintaining vacant lands will face penalties of up to Rs 25,000, with an additional fine of Rs 500 per day for repeated violations. A resolution was passed to this effect in the council on Wednesday. The move is aimed at preventing public health concerns arising from poorly maintained vacant lands that allow for breeding of mosquitoes and other pests, and garbage accumulation. Landowners are now required to regularly monitor their properties to ensure that garbage, construction debris, overgrown vegetation, and stagnant water are cleared promptly. Proper fencing, drainage systems, and vector control measures must be in place. Waste must be disposed of in line with SWM 2016 norms. The owners must share their address and contact to the revenue officials in zones so that they can be contacted in case of complaints of poor maintenance, the resolution stated. During inspection, the land owners must cooperate, it said. In cases of non-compliance, the corporation will issue a formal notice. If the issue is not resolved within seven days, the GCC will clean the site using its own resources or contractors. The cost of cleanup, Rs 5800 (up to five tonnes of waste ) and Rs 11,600 (up to 10 tonnes) will be recovered from the property owner. The new measures are based on the Solid Waste Management Act, 2016, Tamil Nadu Urban Local Bodies (TNULB) Act, 1998, and TNULB Rules, 2023 (sections 384, 385, and 392). As per the current rules, the city corporation collects a vacant land tax for vacant plots.
New Indian Express
20-05-2025
- Politics
- New Indian Express
RWAs say MCD's user fee lacks legal clarity, transparency; AAP stages stir
NEW DELHI: RESIDENT Welfare Associations in the city have raised concerns over the lack of legal clarity regarding the imposition of user fee on households. In a letter to the MCD Commissioner, RWAs pointed out that the civic body has not specified under which head the collected user fees would be utilised. They also cited the Solid Waste Management Act, which they argue prohibits clubbing user fee with the property tax. 'We have formally notified the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) of significant legal and transparency concerns surrounding its newly implemented user fee for solid waste management. Our letter cites non-compliance with the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, and the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957,' said United Residents Joint Action (URJA) Force. URJA also argued that the 'user fee' lacks clear legal grounding. In the letter, the association demanded the MCD to specify the exact legal provisions within the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957, that authorize this charge. The letter also pointed out operational shortcomings and questioned the preparedness for fee implementation, the lack of communication with waste generators, and the absence of a proper grievance redressal system. 'About 13 lakh out of 43 lakh households in Delhi pay property tax. Besides, some residents already pay private waste collectors. We question the fairness of charging only property taxpayers for a service used by all,' the letter read. Meanwhile, the AAP councillors held a sit-in outside Delhi Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh's office on protesting the omission of a proposal to roll back user charges from the House agenda. Following the Municipal Corporation of Delhi polls last month, when the BJP came to power and appointed its mayor, the party on April 25 promised to roll back the user charge. 'Since the beginning, the BJP has had no intention of working for the people of Delhi. All they do is make false promises and avoid real work. We had submitted a proposal to remove the user charges but the BJP is deliberately avoiding it,' said Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the MCD Ankush Narang.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Keystone Sanitary Landfill pays $15,000-plus fine for leachate violation
The Keystone Sanitary Landfill agreed to a $15,000-plus settlement with the state Department of Environmental Protection after it regularly stored too much leachate in its lagoons in 2023 and 2024. Landfill President Louis DeNaples signed a consent order and agreement with the DEP on March 5 that requires the landfill in Dunmore and Throop to pay a civil penalty of $15,487.50 for exceeding the 25% total leachate storage capacity at its lagoons. Leachate is the liquid that percolates through garbage piles. Landfill Business Manager Dan O'Brien and attorney Jeffrey Belardi also signed on behalf of Keystone. The agreement requires Keystone to continue corrective actions to limit similar violations in the future, the DEP said. The settlement In June, the DEP reviewed leachate storage amounts at the Louis and Dominick DeNaples-owned landfill's east and west lagoons and the 'Former Dunmore Fuel Oil Tank,' finding that 'KSL stored leachate in excess of 25% of its total leachate storage capacity on a regular basis,' according to the agreement. Leachate storage totals exceeded the maximum limit every month from October 2023 to June, according to the DEP. As of Sept. 30, the landfill had reduced its leachate to below 25% capacity. The storage violated state code and the Solid Waste Management Act, according to the agreement. The DEP sent the landfill a notice of violation June 11 that documented the violation and asked it to submit a plan and schedule to correct and prevent the violation. Keystone's response 10 days later listed measures it had already instituted to address the issue, including using temporary additional storage in aboveground tanks and hauling leachate off-site to permitted treatment facilities. The landfill also noted plans including installing a rain tarp to divert stormwater away from the leachate collection systems. As part of the settlement, Keystone cannot challenge or deny the department's findings on the matter. According to a compliance history included in the landfill's April operating permit renewal application, it was previously cited for the same violations, including on April 12, 2022, and Sept. 20, 2018. The new settlement comes a year after the landfill agreed to pay a $575,000 civil penalty in March 2024 that was the culmination of 14 odor-related violations since January 2023, close to 1,000 odor complaints in seven months and at least 70 instances of DEP staff detecting offsite landfill gas and leachate odors attributed to Keystone. The DEP touted the nearly $600,000 fine as the largest it had issued to Keystone. That settlement required 26 corrective actions to mitigate odors pertaining to leachate storage, leachate treatment and temporary and permanent covers for waste piles. New odor complaints Last month, the DEP sent Keystone a letter notifying it of numerous complaints related to landfill-associated odors. In the Feb. 18 letter, the DEP said it had received more than 195 complaints since Jan. 14 from residents in Throop, Dunmore, Olyphant, Scranton and Jefferson Twp., with 97 odor complains Jan. 31 alone. Three DEP staff members were dispatched to investigate the complaints that day; all three detected offsite odors attributed to landfill operations, according to the letter. The DEP received an additional 12 odor complaints Feb. 3. A member of DEP's emergency response team conducted a complaint investigation that day and detected offsite odors attributable to landfill operations in community areas. While the emergency response member did not enter the landfill, the odors detected were similar to Keystone's leachate and landfill gas odors, according to the letter. The letter gave the landfill 10 days to submit a plan and schedule addressing the control and minimization of its odors. The landfill responded Feb. 28, saying it was not the source of the 97 complaints Jan. 31. More so, of the 195 complaints, only a small number were verified by DEP staff, and four were incorrectly identified, business Manager Dan O'Brien wrote in the response letter, pointing to a UGI gas leak. During Keystone's offsite odor patrols, especially when barometric pressure is relatively low, landfill personnel have noticed a significant increase in sewer gas odors, which are more prevalent during the winter when traps on storm inlets have no water in them to create a seal, O'Brien said. 'There is no question that KSL is an easy target,' he wrote. 'Anytime there is any kind of odor within a 3-mile radius it is automatically assumed that it must be caused by the landfill.' He pointed to other potential sources of odor in the area, including 'numerous industrial facilities, an asphalt plant, solid waste transfer stations, public and privately owned wastewater treatment facilities, a mulch processing facility, a meat packing plant, the community's sewage, stormwater and combined sewer overflow systems … natural gas leaks, utility pipeline repair/replacement … stormwater retention basins, the major highway system surrounding the landfill, and off-site abandoned mine operations.' 'The situation is further exacerbated by Friends of Lackawanna encouraging anyone and everyone to call PADEP when there is an odor even when the complainant is not experiencing the odor,' he wrote, including screenshots of Jan. 12 and 31 Facebook posts by the landfill opposition group that include the DEP's complaint line phone number for logging odors. Pat Clark, a leader of Friends of Lackawanna, which formed in 2014 to oppose Keystone and its now-approved Phase III expansion, contended the landfill has had longstanding issues with leachate storage. He cited the 2024 consent order and the 14 odor violations contained in it, which the landfill agreed it would not challenge or deny the truth, accuracy or validity of the DEP's assertions. 'People take the time out of their day to call in the odors; the landfill thinks we make it up, yet the department continues to verify these are landfill odors, and the landfill says, 'Hey, it's not us,'' Clark said. 'To continually treat the citizens of Northeast Pennsylvania with such disregard that you're telling us we don't understand that the smell is coming from the landfill continues to be disingenuous at best and insulting at worst.' Keystone said it will review and evaluate its nuisance minimization and control plan, that it has completed tasks in its previous consent order to significantly reduce fugitive odors, that it is installing liners and shallow collectors, that it added a product to a concentrate tank to reduce hydrogen sulfide emissions — a rotten egg smell — and that it is working with a vendor to design and construct a vapor capture system for two new leachate holding tanks.
Yahoo
26-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
DEP to assume oversight of Waverly Twp. superfund site
Five decades ago, a chrome-plating plant in Waverly Twp. stored its distinctive red-and-green industrial wastewater in an unlined lagoon, leading to groundwater, surface water and soil contamination. Neighbors with wells feared for their health as environmental regulators oversaw extensive cleanup and monitoring efforts. Although the Precision National Plating site at 198 Ackerly Road ceased storing carcinogenic chromium-containing wastewater in a lagoon in 1970 and the plant was demolished in 2000, its impacts are still apparent as the state Department of Environmental Protection looks to assume oversight of the superfund site from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The DEP is accepting comments until Feb. 19 on a proposed consent order and agreement with the White Plains, New York-based Precision National Plating Services Inc. The order will require Precision to continue performing EPA-mandated monitoring and water treatment, in addition to building a new public waterline. Precision contaminated the site with total chromium, which includes trivalent and hexavalent chromium, according to the DEP's consent order. Concerns have largely focused on the presence of hexavalent chromium as the major contaminant. Exposure can cause occupational asthma, eye irritation and damage, perforated eardrums, respiratory irritation, kidney damage, liver damage, pulmonary congestion and edema, upper abdominal pain, nose irritation and damage, respiratory cancer, skin irritation, and erosion and discoloration of the teeth, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA. 'The past and present conditions at the Site constitute a release and/or threatened release of hazardous substances and/or contaminants,' the DEP wrote in its consent order, which cites Precision for violating multiple sections of the state's Clean Streams Law, Solid Waste Management Act and Administrative Code for wrongfully discharging industrial waste into Pennsylvania's waters and wrongfully disposing of hazardous waste. * The site of the former Precision National Plating factory is seen through a fence surrounding the perimeter in Waverly Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER) * The site of the former Precision National Plating factory is seen through a locked gate off of Ackerly Road in Waverly Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER) * A locked gate restricts access to the former Precision National Plating plant in Waverly Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER) Show Caption 1 of 3 The site of the former Precision National Plating factory is seen through a fence surrounding the perimeter in Waverly Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER) Expand In a phone interview Wednesday, retired DEP licensed professional geologist John Mellow recalled working on the site from the 1990s until his retirement in early 2010. 'It was a very controversial site for sure,' he said. An Archbald resident and member of the Sierra Club's Northeastern Pennsylvania Group chapter, Mellow worked in the DEP's Hazardous Sites Cleanup Program. His role at the time was to make sure the DEP understood the extent of the contamination in all significant aquifers, whether it was a shallow aquifer going to the surface or the aquifers supplying residential wells. 'It was a very serious problem,' Mellow said. 'Hexavalent chromium, it's a human health contaminant that's very toxic.' The goal now is to get rid of the toxic hexavalent chromium and, over time, the total chromium will also decrease, he said, calling it a long-term process. One part of the remediation is converting hexavalent chromium into trivalent chromium, which Mellow explained is less mobile and less toxic. 'This is a good reason why you have to have environmental regulations,' Mellow said. 'A lot of this was done before there was any requirements to have any kind of monitoring or treatment.' A history of pollution Less than a quarter mile from Ackerly Creek, and even closer to residential homes along Arch Avenue in neighboring Glenburn Twp., the Precision site was operational from 1958 until 1999, according to an EPA case summary. Ernest V. Berry Inc. operated the plant until 1971 when Precision National Corporation purchased the property, later changing its name to Precision National Plating Services Inc. in 1987, according to the EPA. The site initially functioned as a chromium electroplating facility for locomotive crankshafts, and when Precision bought the property, it added an industrial component reconditioning facility, according to an August 2020 work plan from Precision. The reconditioning involved applying a protective and wear-reducing coating that contained chromium to various engine components for the railroad, marine and power industries, according to a September 2006 response approval summary from the EPA. Chromium contamination in the soil and groundwater occurred between 1958 and 1987, according to Precision's 2020 work plan. From 1958 until around 1970, chromium wastes were disposed of in a lagoon at the northern end of the facility, but in May 1970, the contaminated liquid leaked from a break in the lagoon's retaining wall and was absorbed into the soil in a drainage pathway, with additional hazardous waste-containing substances flowing to the nearby creek, according to the EPA's case summary. Until July 1970, the plant also allowed chromium-containing water to flow into floor drains that discharged to the ground outside, according to a 2012 report from Precision. The DEP began investigating the site in the 1970s over its waste-handling and disposal procedures, taking action against Precision to reduce groundwater contamination, according to an April 1998 responsiveness summary from the EPA. In response, Precision drained and backfilled its lagoon, provided nearby residents with bottled water beginning in 1979 and moved chromium-contaminated soil from the lagoon and other areas into a vault. In 1987, Precision released an additional 200 gallons of wastewater from a faulty valve at the plant. A reporter with The Sunday Times described the Feb. 8, 1987, spill, writing that the state was investigating a greenish-yellow liquid that flowed from Precision and down Ackerly Road into Ackerly Creek. In 1993, Precision began working with the EPA under its Superfund Accelerated Cleanup Model program. Throughout the 1990s, Precision would go on to drill two wells on Arch Avenue to provide drinking water for residents, install a public waterline for people with contaminated wells, engage in residential well monitoring and soil sampling, long-term groundwater monitoring and the collection and treatment of contaminated groundwater seeping to the surface. The plant permanently closed in April 1999, and its equipment was decontaminated and either sold or disposed of off-site, according to Precision's 2020 work plan. With oversight from the EPA and approval from Abington Twp. — now Waverly Twp. — Precision tore down its 45,000-square-foot building in fall 2000, though the remediation efforts were far from over. The cleanup Throughout the 2000s, Precision worked to treat and monitor its chromium contamination, largely reducing the levels of hexavalent chromium. With two water treatment systems on-site, water sampling results from April 1, 2023, through June 30, 2023, which were submitted to the EPA on July 12 and are the most recent available online, show trace amounts of hexavalent chromium still present in some samples, though after treatment, the carcinogen is undetectable. In its latest pollution report from Aug. 6, the EPA summarized the past 20 years of efforts to clean up the site. In September 2005, the EPA approved a plan submitted on behalf of Precision to use calcium polysulfide to reduce the amount of hexavalent chromium in groundwater and soil by turning it into a less toxic form called trivalent chromium, which will remain in the soil and bedrock. Precision began injecting the chemical the following July. Additional testing in October 2007 and March 2008 confirmed the residual contamination remained at the site, about 18 to 30 feet below ground, according to the EPA. In August 2008, Precision carried out additional injections to treat those contaminated areas in the shallow bedrock, and hexavalent chromium levels dropped in Ackerly Creek due to a combination of the activities, the EPA reported. Precision and EPA signed a new administrative settlement agreement and order on consent on May 3, 2012, with multiple rounds of calcium polysulfide injections between fall 2012 and fall 2018. Semi-annual and quarterly sampling between 2016 and 2020 to document chromium levels showed the injections appeared to have been effective, though some hexavalent chromium persisted in isolated areas, as well as further downhill toward Ackerly Creek, according to the EPA. Precision then targeted those areas in the summer and fall of 2020 with more injections. The EPA allowed Precision to reduce its chromium surface water sampling from quarterly to semi-annually in 2021 because it continued to keep chromium levels below the minimum requirement in Ackerly Creek. Most samples do not detect hexavalent chromium, and those that do have remained under the minimum levels since July 2016. The future With its proposed consent order and agreement, the DEP will require Precision to continue the incomplete corrective actions outlined in the EPA's 2012 settlement. Those are: * For as long as releases continue, to collect contaminated water from groundwater seeps until total chromium levels remain below 100 parts per billion to prevent human exposure to contaminated groundwater. * Treat the water from the currently collected seeps. * Sample semi-annually both on- and off-site groundwater wells and nearby residential wells, with an accelerated schedule during any chemical injections. * Perform air monitoring during any treatment conducted. * Groundwater within the contaminate area shall not be used for drinking water until the maximum contaminant level for chromium is reached. Additionally, Precision will be required to work with Pennsylvania American Water Company to install a waterline extension at and around the site to provide owners of nearby vacant properties within the chromium-impacted area with public water. Pennsylvania American Water does not have any project details at this time, company spokeswoman Susan Turcmanovich said in an email Thursday. Precision will also have 90 days from the agreement's effective date to provide the DEP with documents showing its efforts to procure environmental covenants for properties impacted by or threatened to be impacted by chromium contamination. Precision must also submit quarterly progress reports to the DEP. Attempts to reach attorney Kevin C. Quinn of Kingston-based Hourigan, Kluger and Quinn, who is representing Precision according to the consent order, were unsuccessful. Jim Davis, the chairman of Glenburn Twp.'s board of supervisors, said his township has been very pleased with the information shared by the EPA throughout the process. 'Obviously a superfund cleanup site and a municipality being able to just make information available to their residents, it's been helpful,' Davis said. 'If the DEP is going to be taking over oversight of this, I'm very comfortable with what direction it's going in.' Davis has lived in Glenburn Twp. since 2014 and is in his sixth year as a township supervisor, but he grew up half a mile from the Precision site on Oakford Road. 'I know there were a lot of residents that were very much involved, especially the ones that were impacted, who were very upset with what happened, especially with the owner, Precision,' he said, noting the ongoing efforts to cleanup and manage the site. 'The EPA and the DEP have continued to serve the public interests of public health, and I hope that continues.' A longtime advocate of the Lackawanna River, Bernie McGurl, who is the retired executive director of the Lackawanna River Conservation Association, doubts the chromium will ever be fully removed from the ground. McGurl reviewed the most recent water sampling results submitted by Precision to the EPA. 'It's probably typical of a lot of bad industrial operations that just went on and on and on in the old days before people were cognizant of the potential impacts,' said McGurl, who is now a senior consultant with the LRCA. 'The damage is pretty extensive and deep, and it's going to be persistent in the groundwater — I don't think they can ever rectify it.' While water samples could be below the minimum level of contamination the day they're tested, they could also spike on other days because there is not a constant testing procedure, he said. As a result, McGurl lauded the DEP's proposal for Precision to work with Pennsylvania American Water to bring an additional public water supply to the area. Because the chromium went untreated and unabated for so long, the geology itself is containing the material in minute quantities 'in the nooks and crannies and crevices' of the ledge stone, rocks and groundwater tables, where it would flow into Ackerly Creek and then into the now-depleted Glenburn Pond, McGurl said. 'It's always going to be there,' he said. To comment on the proposed consent order and agreement, submit written comments to Scott J. Bene in the DEP's Environmental Cleanup and Brownfields Program by emailing sbene@ or at 2 Public Square, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701.
