Long Island Advance
August 13, 2009
Spying landfill leaks
Brookhaven Town upgrades
technology at landfill to
prevent problems
By LINDA LEUZZI
A new requirement for cell
construction approval above
and beyond what the New York
State Department of
Environmental Conservation
calls for, electronic leak
detection monitoring prior
to any placement of waste in
the new cell and any future
cells, has been established
in Brookhaven Town’s
landfill. “The extra step
can detect a hole the
diameter of a finishing
nail,” said Brookhaven’s
Waste Commissioner Ed
Hubbard of the technology in
an e-mail. “The new cell
that will go online this
week is 100 percent free of
any punctures or tears.”
“It’s already been done,
about two weeks ago,”
explained Brookhaven Town
Majority Leader Timothy P.
Mazzei, the town’s Waste
Management liaison. The
probe was used on Cell 6.
“We hired a firm from Texas
and they determined a couple
of tears, all small, but one
was about six inches which
was immediately repaired.
Now as a result of the probe
we now know the liner has no
tears. We are tear free. As
a result of seeing this work
we are now going to use it
in the future prior to
construction of the new cell
and placement of debris.”
Brookhaven Town is the first
to use the electronic leak
detection monitoring in
their landfill on Long
Island, Mazzei said. “That’s
our information,” he
confirmed. Leak Location
Services Inc., the company
used, is located in San
Antonio. According to their
Web site, they specialize in
geomembrane liner leak
detection for landfills and
surface impoundments. The
technology includes the
probe, wires, and a
generator. What the probe
detects is viewed via a
monitoring device. It cost
$10,000 for the monitoring.
“But we’ve charged back the
money to the company that
installed the cell liner,”
Mazzei said of Cell 6. “So
it’s not going to cost us
any money.” In addition,
approval of a landfill
groundwater model for the
town of Brookhaven Landfill
that will monitor the area
down gradient of the
landfill including the
current Beaver Dam Creek
plume passed via a Town
Board resolution last week.
“This will fulfill a
longtime wish of mine to
have a comprehensive
groundwater model done of
the area,” said Hubbard. “It
will help to monitor the
current plume and
groundwater conditions and
make sure that if anything
like this happens in the
future we catch it in plenty
of time to do something
about it.”
“It came from
the Beaver Dam Creekwater
quality group,” said
Councilwoman Connie Kepert
(4th District) regarding the
probe and modeling
initiatives. “We have two
primary focuses—to protect
the people south of the
landfill by hooking them up
to public water and to
determine the environmental
damage of the current plume,
and obviously, we don’t want
it happening again,” she
said. “We’ve hired Dvirka
and Bartilucci and they have
been sinking probes and
using some of the old wells
for samples,” Kepert
explained of the model. “We
are taking all the data we
have and developing the
comprehensive groundwater
model to show how it flows
south of the landfill. That
will help us catch any
problem very quickly.”
Kepert gave kudos to Hubbard
for pursuing the new
technology as well. “It
showed several pinholes as
well as a significant tear,”
she said of the electronic
probe. “The liner is covered
with a couple of feet of
sand. Then they dig through
and put in an electronic
probe and it finds leaks. It
really prevented a future
problem.” ■
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Monitoring landfill a good
idea
August 13, 2009
Brookhaven Town’s
decision to enact a
number of reforms for
dealing with safety at
the landfill is a
positive step and a
clear indication that
town officials take the
safety of residents
seriously. The town
recently approved using
new technology to better
monitor possible leaks.
The electronic leak
detection system is the
first being used on Long
Island. The town also
approved a groundwater
model for the landfill
to monitor areas down
gradient of the landfill
for potential leaks.
That will enable the
town to better monitor
current plumes like the
one polluting Beaver Dam
Creek, and if another
leak does occur, to
allow the town to
recognize the leak
quickly.
The new technology
allows the town to “see”
if there are any tears
in the liners of the
cells. A tear or
puncture in a cell can
result in pollutants
leaking into the
groundwater, which can
then spread into
communities, rivers and
drinking water.
Brookhaven Town Majority
Leader Timothy P.
Mazzei, the liaison to
Waste Management, said
the new technology
already caught a
six-inch tear in one
cell. That tear was
repaired and the cost of
the new technology was
billed to the company
that installed the cell
liner.
After the Beaver Dam
Creek plume was first
reported, and then
subsequently reported to
not be as toxic as
originally thought, we
feared the town might
back off on its
obligation to monitor
the landfill and
existing plumes, and
actively engage the
public in remediation
efforts. We are pleased
that the town is
treating the landfill,
as it should and working
to ensure the safety of
town residents. As we
have said in the past,
the town has no margin
for error when it comes
to safety at the
landfill.
If one error exists,
pollution can occur that
can affect thousands of
residents. The town has
the moral responsibility
in addition to the
governmental
responsibility to make
sure the landfill is not
polluting the
environment and
endangering residents.
We applaud the town for
making the landfill
safer, and encourage
town officials to
continue to seek newer
and more effective ways
to monitor the landfill
and contain
contaminants. You can
never be too safe when
it comes to the
landfill, the
environment and the
health of town
residents.
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