SALINE CO.—The issue of West End Landfill being tipped as to when IEPA inspectors were going to be checking out the place doesn’t stop with last month’s (February 2014) edition that exposed the termination of the tipster.
Robert Mileur was merely transferred from Marion EPA to a job in the Department of Mines and Minerals, not booted from state employment altogether.
Likewise, things have gone easy for the landfill he was tipping off—or wholesale overlooking many violations of—and they have continued successfully since Mileur’s departure, with limited violations.
However, the term “successfully” applies only to the fact that Mileur’s violations didn’t necessarily impact them adversely.
Instead, West End Landfill—owned by well-known Harrisburg-area businessmen Rick Lane and former Harrisburg mayor Robert Wilson—might now be the victim of the ongoing coal mining in the area.
Last month’s account told in detail the EPA’s investigation into what exactly Mileur, who became friends with either Lane or Wilson (the name was redacted in every account, so which person, exactly, remains unknown) was doing: communicating to West End, which has been sited in the northwest part of the county since 1990, when inspectors would be appearing at the facility to see whether there were any land violations as they regarded Environmental Protection Agency standards. Many violations were wholesale overlooked when Mileur was doing the inspection.
However, when subsequent inspectors took over, and did find as violations, may play into a somewhat disastrous scenario that’s now facing West End, as well as the county.
The two acre site is situated in an area west of Galatia/north of Harrisburg, where mining is rapidly approaching the landfill.
West End has applied for a permit, as of November 2013, for a status that is basically a “call for closure.” When a landfill closes, there has to be a permit issued because the closure of a landfill has to be monitored for 30 years, post-closure, and someone must assume the responsibility of the monitoring. According to reports received by Disclosure, West End has applied for, and received, such a permit.
In county-owned landfills, that responsibility of course falls to the county. But in a privately-owned landfill, it sometimes can be unclear who gets the responsibility. Oftentimes the private owner will sell to another private owner. But sometimes, the monitoring falls upon the county by default…especially if such a thing is written into the county health department guidelines.
In Egyptian Health Department’s book of guidelines on solid waste management, one of the options mentioned as regards maintenance of landfills was the “possibility of longwall mining” beneath the landfill, something that would be inadvisable, as the landfill created stress on what’s going on underground directly beneath it; as well as the mining directly beneath a landfill creating stress for the landfill that could include a breach of a heavy-gauge plastic liner that must be placed in the pit before trash can begin being placed in the landfill.
While mining has been going on throughout Saline for decades, it would appear that the guideline book, created in 1990, somehow “knew” that longwall mining—not routinely conducted as a way to extract coal at that time—might be approaching the sited West End Landfill. Only one company was starting to longwall in 1990—Kerr McGee; it was otherwise unheard of.
Now, longwall mining is approaching West End Landfill on nearly all sides. The closer the mining gets to West End, the more hazardous it becomes.
But sources close to the situation have advised Disclosure that Wilson and Lane intend to sell their permitted landfill area to the coal mines; one source at the mines has it that the sale has already taken place, and whether or not they’re delaying due to possible illegalities remains to be seen. These same sources have advised that the two have considered, or perhaps are just short of taking action on, declaring bankruptcy on the landfill, which means they wouldn’t be responsible for the costs of closure.
If the bankruptcy takes place before the sale of property occurs, closure doesn’t become the responsibility of the entity that purchases the landfill.
The area being considered for sale to the adjacent coal mines doesn’t include the 20-acre permitted site which has to have a 30-year post-closure maintenance.
According to EPA regulations, it costs $5 million per acre to close.
The bottom line is this: if the bankruptcy goes through, the entity that becomes responsible for the cost of closure—$100,000,000 (that’s ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS)—is Saline County, since they’re the ones who issued the closure permit, and since a new owner wouldn’t have taken control of the site yet (the property can be sold in the process of bankruptcy, in order to settle the bankruptcy debt.)
This all goes back to a check West End wrote to the county for $10,000 years ago: 1995.
It was at the time called a host fee.
About four years ago when the landfill was having a rough time meeting the tipping fee, the county applied that to their old bill. This, Disclosure wrote about at the time, was an illegal activity.
This matter is being examined by this paper, as well as the situation with a $50,000 certificate of deposit, the provenance of which is under question.
There will be more on these matters in upcoming issues; be sure to keep watching.