Dive Brief:
- Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection has fined Waste Management Inc. $500,000 for failing to contain odors at the Tullytown Landfill in Bucks County, PA, which prompted complaints from residents across the Delaware River in Florence, NJ.
- DEP also said the company took too long to treat rainwater and other water that flows through two other dumps it owns in neighboring Falls Township.
- Houston-based Waste Management has already stopped sending waste to one of the Falls Township landfills. Last month, the state ordered Waste Management to close the Tullytown dump by May 2017. The third site is to shut down by February 2019.
Dive Insight:
Landfill odors are a problem in many areas — a problem that can be extremely tricky to maintain or solve.
John Hambrose of Waste Management told the Inquirer that the company has moved up its schedule to install plastic covers over the waste at Tullytown, added soil, no longer dumps sewage sludge at that site, and added more wells to capture odorous gasses. However, the company may be too late to fix the damage that has already been done.
"We work hard to have a good relationship with our communities," Hambrose said. "And we're going to continue to have good relationships, including with Florence."
