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Engineers link contamination to puddle under landfill
By Johnathan Burns
The Macon Telegraph
Engineers believe a puddle beneath the Macon city landfill is responsible for contaminating two ground-water monitoring wells with vinyl chloride.
The city will soon bore new wells downstream from the contaminated sites to pinpoint how broad the polluted area is beneath one of the state's last large unlined landfills.
"It's an old landfill ... which actually works pretty darn well." - Kathy Bragg, Tribble & Richardson Inc. | |
The Macon Telegraph reported Tuesday that two monitoring sites south of the landfill detected cancer-causing vinyl chloride earlier this year. At one of the wells, the substance registered at 43 parts per billion parts of water, more than 20 times the federal government's acceptable level.
Macon Water Authority Chairman Frank Amerson and Macon Mayor Jim Marshall said the contamination bolsters their position that the landfill could be closed at any time and that a new site is needed. The MWA has been pushing a proposed bill in the state Legislature giving the authority the power to close the landfill and build a new one.
State environmental workers, city officials and private-sector engineers all say the contamination does not yet pose any danger to humans or the environment. No humans drink water from the monitoring wells, and the Macon Water Authority's water intake is located several miles north of the site.
But a search of wells in the area issued permits by the Macon-Bibb County Health Department shows 28 public or commercial wells are within five miles of the landfill and two private wells are within a half mile. The health department doesn't know if the wells are used.
"Our department isn't planning to do anything yet," said Jimmy Taylor, director of environmental health for the health department. "We only monitor for bacteria, we don't have equipment sophisticated enough to screen for chemicals. That would be the responsibility of the Environmental Protection Division."
Taylor said the health department would help the EPD if requested.
There are a total of 16 active monitoring wells at the Macon landfill, which is one of fewer than 10 unlined facilities still operating in Georgia. Most other unlined landfills were closed by July, said David Gibbons, principal environmental engineer with the EPD.
"At one point, the state had 189 operating unlined landfills," he said. "That number has come down drastically, while the sizes of the new, lined landfills have increased."
The state moved to lined landfills after a 1991 federal law mandated that all new landfills be lined and equipped with fluid collection systems. In 1992, the state adopted legislation requiring unlined landfills with temporary permits to stack garbage to close in 1998.
Macon and more than 15 other cities were allowed to break the deadline because their landfills were designed to stack garbage vertically.
"Most landfills didn't make use of the air space," Gibbons said. "They'd dig down, dump trash and then level it with the ground. Macon's was designed to stack."
Gibbons said Macon's landfill, which has the capacity to last 19 more years, will be the last unlined landfill to close - barring health hazards.
"That landfill actually has a very good reputation," he said. "Almost every landfill that has problems shows vinyl chloride. The levels there could drop. Or you could see a bunch of other things. There's no way of predicting what will happen."
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The Macon Telegraph and may not be republished without permission. Contact Us.