County Agrees to Test for Toxins, Emissions at Landfill
After residents spoke up, the county agreed to some tests of air quality at the Alpha Ridge Landfill.
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After an emotional and at times tense meeting in Marriottsville, the Howard County Bureau of Environmental Services has agreed to residents’ requests to test for certain toxins at the Alpha Ridge Landfill.
Evelyn Tomlin, Chief of the Bureau of Environmental Services, said Jan. 12 the county is also planning to test the emissions of the gas-to-energy generator once it is buit.
The meeting was held to address concerns about potential pollution from a methane-to-energy generator planned at the landfill where currently a flare burns off most of the methane.
During the course of the meeting, residents said they were concerned not only with potential pollution at a new generator, but that they did not know the levels of dioxins and furans – toxins created during combustion in the presence of certain chemicals – coming out of the flare.
A letter from Tomlin to residents said the county will test the current flare for dioxins and furans. The county will also test the gas that forms in the landfill for certain substances, including mercury.
The letter did not mention plans for future testing of emissions from the generator once it’s built.
“I think testing the flare is a positive first step,” Geff Ottman, a resident of the area who has expressed concern about safety, said in an email.
“I would feel better if the county was discussing long-term environmental concerns for Alpha Ridge.”
The cost of both tests and a modeling report will total $40,000, according to Tomlin. They are scheduled for Jan. 17 and 18; results should be available in early February.
Laura Green, one of the chemists the county hired to study the gas-to-energy proposal, said in an email that she thought the scheduled tests were “appropriate with regard to environmental impacts and public health concerns.”
“Assuming that the test results are consistent with results found at other landfills,” she added, “neither the current flaring nor the proposed gas-to-energy project would be expected to result in unhealthful concentrations of pollutants in ambient air.”
