The owner of a leaking hazardous waste landfill yesterday agreed to pay for an outside engineering consultant because people who live near the landfill don't believe the company will properly clean up the site.
"I know you have all the expertise, and you have all the money. But we have this credibility problem," environmental activist Mary Rosso told officials of Browning-Ferris Industries.
Company officials met with a dozen or so Marley Neck residents and county environment officials yesterday. County Executive John G. Gary, who has said he wants to see the landfill problems "straightened out," called yesterday's meeting.
Bruce Jernigan, a BFI vice president, said money for the consultant will be funneled through the county. The residents will pick the consultant.
At yesterday's meeting, residents decided to form a committee to keep track of what happens at the landfill.
Residents said state and federal officials do little to keep them informed of plans to contain the carcinogenic waste leaking from the Solley Road landfill. They said BFI knew the landfill was leaking solvents when the company closed the site in 1982 but that more than a decade later, the site is still an environmental hazard.
Mr. Jernigan also said yesterday that Houston-based BFI will start a toll-free telephone line for questions about the work on Solley Road; will hold monthly meetings; and will compile engineering studies, permit applications and correspondence. Those documents probably will be kept at the Riviera Beach or North County library branch.
The information is now at the various agencies that have responsibility for overseeing the site.
Caspar Hackmann, one of the neighbors, said BFI had made the offers only to placate critics.
The landfill's environmental protections are failing. The cap that seals it is falling apart, ground water contaminated with cancer-causing solvents has seeped into neighboring property, and efforts to pump cleansed ground water back into the ground did not work.
In October, BFI asked state environmental officials to let the company try to inject cleansed water into the ground on the east side of the landfill. A previous attempt on the west side failed, but the company thinks it knows why that attempt failed and that it can correct the problem.
The company thinks that iron in the water at one pumping station was rusting and clogging the injection system. Iron will be removed from the water in that well, Mr. Jernigan said.
The October proposal fell flat with the Maryland Department of the Environment and with the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Both feared that the plan would send ground water east toward Stony Creek, said BFI consultant Michael Deyling.
Mr. Jernigan said the company will inject the water at three sites on the western side of the landfill, sending the water toward Marley Creek, as was tried a year and a half ago. It will start making test borings this week and hopes to have the entire system running by August. It also will reseal the west waste heap, he said.
The company will need a county grading permit to reseal the waste mountain. Mr. Jernigan said area residents "can help us a lot by voicing support at our grading permit hearings." After yesterday's meeting, Mr. Jernigan said he expected the permit to be challenged by a neighbor who has fought the company previously. He was referring to S. John Blumenthal, who wants to put a townhouse development on 145 acres he owns next to the landfill. Mr. Blumenthal also has sued BFI for $100 million, claiming the company polluted his land.
Other neighbors complained that the county was shirking its responsibility by allowing BFI to pile chipped tires at least 20 feet high between Solley Road and one of its waste mountains.
County officials responded by barring BFI from accepting any more tires. An environmental inspector will check the site today.
BFI intends to use chips from 3 million tires to help drain water off the trash heaps. The company barely has 10 percent of the tires it will need. County fire inspectors insisted the piles of tire chips should be separated.
Ruth Bell, who owns property across from the landfill, said she grew concerned about potential fire problems this month when a truck overturned at the landfill and spilled fuel between a waste heap and the tire chips. A tire fire could smolder for weeks, she said.