The owners of a leaking hazardous waste landfill will meet Monday with a group of Marley Neck residents and county officials, including County Executive John G. Gary, to explain the company's proposals to correct problems there.
Mr. Gary asked for the meeting after he met earlier this month with officials from Browning-Ferris Industries, owners of the closed landfill on Solley Road where environmental protections are breaking down.
Cancer-causing wastes are seeping into the ground water, caps sealing the two trash hills are coming apart and attempts to pump cleaned ground water back into the ground did not work.
Meanwhile, contamination is moving toward Marley Creek faster than state environmental officials expected, and BFI is trying to get federal, state and local approvals for its plans to stop the spread of hazardous waste. It has some of the permits.
"The county executive just wanted to bring the parties together and talk about this issue," said Lawrence R. Telford IV, Mr. Gary's spokesman.
He said Mr. Gary, sworn in Dec. 4, also wants to learn what the issues and concerns are.
"We are there to put our two cents worth in," said Peter Block, a BFI spokesman.
The morning session in Annapolis could be a one-time-only gathering, or the community group could evolve into a panel that meets regularly.
Among those invited to participate is environmental activist Mary Rosso, who said she would like to see a new group started.
"There has been no kind of community working group, no kind of coordination," she said.
BFI has proposed to state environmental officials that it try again to inject cleaned water into the ground. The company wants to move the reinjection sites from the west side of the landfill to the east end, by Solley Road. Solley Road is roughly the dividing line between ground water heading west to Marley Creek and east to Stony Creek.
Some residents fear moving the site will send contaminated ground water into the neighborhood east of the landfill.
While at least 10 neighbors were invited to the meeting, S. John Blumenthal was not. He sued the Houston-based waste hauler for $100 million in September, claiming the hazardous waste leak onto his adjacent 145 acres has wrecked his plans for a townhouse subdivision.
"I think it's inappropriate that I be excluded," Mr. Blumenthal complained yesterday.