By: Lydia Crawley The Parsons Advocate
Holstine said that overall, he felt the meeting went well and that the DEP came to better understanding of the situation and the unique circumstances that exist at the Landfill and with the Authority. “We did meet with the DEP,” Holstine said. “It turned out to be a good meeting in the end and I think they understand where we’re at, some of the reasons why we’re where we’re at preexisted our operation and we’re doing everything we can do with the money we have at hand to take care of those issues.”
Holstine said he feels there will be a more positive relationship between the entities moving forward following the meeting. “I think that was a positive meeting,” Holstine said. “Looking forward to a little better relationship moving forward.”
The highest concern coming out of the DEP inspection to Holstine concerns the use of the eco misters. The misters have been used by the Landfill to evaporate and reduce the amount of leachate the Landfill produces and reduce the amount of loads that have needed trucked out of the facility. The DEP has stated objections to the use due to over spray.
Holstine said that he is concerned that due to repeated problems with the DEP over the use of the misters, the use of them could be coming to an end which will greatly increase the amount of leachate the facility produces. “My concern moving into next year are leachate expenses with the repeated DEP inspection comments about the eco misters, I’m afraid the life, the useful life of the misters is coming to an end,” Holstine said. “We are most likely going to be running with just one eco mister, if not no eco misters come the near future.”
Holstine said he anticipates that the cost of leachate disposal will increase greatly to amounts closer to what they were before the current board took over. In anticipation, next year’s budget has already reflected an increase in the cost of leachate disposal, Holstine said. “With that, we have to anticipate higher leachate expenses,” Holstine said. “That $600,000 number was about where we were when we took over here.”
The Authority has already seen an increase in the cost of leachate disposal from the harsh, wet winter the area had this year, Holstine said. In February alone, the facility hauled close to a million gallons of leachate from the weather conditions, according to Holstine. “Of course it was an extremely harsh winter. It was extremely wet, a lot of snow,” Holstine said. “You’re going to see the effect of that in next month’s financials.”
The amount of leachate hauled is anticipated to begin to taper off unless the weather conditions remain unseasonably wet, Holstine said. Regardless, without the eco misters to evaporate some of the liquids, the cost will still be higher to haul than what the Authority has seen since their inception, according to Holstine. “That will taper off,” Holstine said. “If we have a wet summer, we have a wet fall, those numbers are going to stay elevated without the benefit of being able to try to evaporate some of that, you are going to see a definite impact on our financial statements.”
There was no word when the eco misters would officially go offline.
