Sludge Watch ==> Landfill trash pile 'slumping'

[David Dubin]

http://www.monroenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060802/NEWS01/108020013/-1/NEWS
 
Article published Aug 2, 2006
Landfill trash pile 'slumping'

The pile of trash at Carleton Farms has been on the move. 

A stew of sewage and waste has caused instability in the mound of trash near the western edge of the landfill in Sumpter Township. 

The mound has been settling and cracking - something solid waste professionals refer to as "slumping." 

Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's Wes Sherman said that there is no imminent danger of the garbage sliding down and overtaking neighboring towns. 

"That would be a really worst case scenario," Mr. Sherman, solid waste engineering coordinator said. "They've taken some preventative measures like they've put in a large soil buttress to prevent the trash from moving any further. Now, within the next day, they are installing a thing called an inclinometer - a flexible pipe grouted to the trash with a device in the casing that can indicate whether it has moved, what sections have moved and where the movement is occurring in order to stop it."

Mr. Sherman said the landfill owners, Republic Services Inc., informed the MDEQ of the waste shift at the end of June, when they reportedly first noticed it. Since then, the Carleton Farms team has been working with engineers and the MDEQ to rectify the problem. 

"Not one ounce of waste has moved off of the liners," said Republic Services spokesman Will Flower. "This has no negative impact on environmental or public health."

Slumping is not a unique phenomenon, but the Carleton Farms shift stands out a little. 

"What happens in landfills is they always get some settlement and actually the mass of the waste will cause underlying layers to settle," said Mr. Sherman. "The waste that goes in the landfill is not uniform, so they can usually experience that at the top of the landfill as the waste settles. What we are seeing is not so typical because of the cracks. It's not so typical because it covers a much larger area. There has been horizontal movement as well."

Larry Bean, a geologist with the MDEQ whose previous focus was on Carleton Farms, said they suspected sludge was at the root of the slide. 

"A lot of times when sludge is brought in they dig pits in the old waste to get the material into the landfill uniformly - to reduce the potential for odor," he said. "It appears that a number of those pits are above each other and they've lined up and created a slippery slope so the waste has appeared to slide a little bit."

Drying out the area is key to stopping more movement, said Mr. Bean. He also mentioned substances could be injected into the mound, once a section was targeted as problematic, to help facilitate a dry out. 

"We're doing constant monitoring of the landfill and the settling has stopped," said Mr. Flower.

People driving by would probably not notice anything out of the ordinary when looking at the dump, with the depression reportedly not noticeable from the exterior.

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