Commissioner eyes landfill citation process

By ZACH LINT
The Times-Reporter

BOLIVAR - Tuscarawas County Commissioner Chris Abbuhl said Thursday that he sent a letter to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency in hopes of “leveling the playing field” when it comes to weekly landfill inspections.

Abbuhl was concerned after finding a discrepancy between the number of “notice of violation” letters that Kimble Landfill at Dover received in comparison to the number received by Countywide Recycling & Disposal Facility at East Sparta and American Landfill at Waynesburg.

Kimble received a small list of violations nearly every week from the Tuscarawas County Health Department, while the Stark landfills only got a total of six notices of violations in the past two years – four from the Stark Health Department and two from the Ohio EPA.

“This isn’t to make Kimble look bad. They’ve taken the proper steps to correct their problems,” Abbuhl said. “But if Kimble is getting written up weekly for little things and the landfills in Stark County are taking in three to four times more trash, it stands to reason there would be a violation somewhere.”

County health departments are charged with conducting weekly landfill inspections in their respective counties. That duty is sometimes shared with local districts of the OEPA.

According to an Ohio EPA memo on notice of violation letters, their purpose is to convey the time and circumstances of landfill inspections, state the violations and establish a time frame for response. Notices should also document compliance status of a facility or site and, if needed, deliver a formal notice of non-compliance.

Kimble was always noted as being in compliance or as having taken measures to correct its problems – which ranged from leachate seepage to litter blown throughout its property to improper ground cover to bury trash.

Abbuhl said he was tired of hearing Countywide officials tout its operating record as flawless in comparison to Kimble’s, and he wanted to get to the bottom of how they could make that statement.

“My question now is, would there be a benefit to having all the landfills in a waste district being inspected by the same persons or entities?” Abbuhl said. “Why is there such a discrepancy here?”

Kirk Norris, Stark County’s director of environmental health, said Thursday that Stark County handles its weekly landfill inspections in much the same manner as Tuscarawas County but does not cite for violations every week.

“We do send a weekly letter with our findings as a heads up,” he said.

Unlike Tuscarawas County’s weekly letters, Norris noted Stark County does not list the code that the landfill is in violation of but states that the issue could become a potential violation if it is not addressed.

Norris said Countywide and American are not without problems, like any landfill, but said the weekly inspections are intended to keep the landfills in compliance, rather than cite them for violations.

But Tuscarawas County Environmental Health Director Roger Fanning doesn’t see it that way.

“Our weekly letters to the landfill are a notice of the violation of the section of law which they are not in compliance with,” Fanning said. “If they’re not in full compliance, they’re considered in violation. It should be said that 49 out of 50 times Kimble is able to have the matter addressed and corrected before our next visit.”

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