photo: Craig Ruttle, Cincinnati Enquirer
The site of the Rumpke Sanitary Landfill in Colerain Township has gone from a gentle, rural valley to Hamilton county’s highest point in just 65 years. Known to its neighbors as “Mount Rumpke”, the site measures 509 acres and 1,064 feet above sea level and is the largest and tallest in the region. The landfill was expanded by 95 acres in 2004 and can accommodate waste at current generation rates until 2025. (source: Hamilton County Solid Waste Management Plan)
Rumpke has had serious environmental violations at this site. A 30 acre trash-slide later led to an ammonia leak into Banklick Creek measuring 830 times greater than normal levels. Rumpke was also fined for illegally accepting hazardous waste in 2005 and a subsurface fire of unknown origin has been burning since August 2009.
Now Rumpke wants another expansion – 350 acres –hoping to double the dump’s present footprint and extend its lifespan until 2055. Here are 3 good reasons not to expand the dump:
- It is not necessary. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources estimates 70% of waste currently going to the landfill can be recycled or composted and recycling rates are going up in Hamilton county. Why should we assume the expansion is needed when we could very well see waste generation rates decline?
- Neighbors’ increased exposure to odors, dust and air pollution. Rumpke is currently permitted to release 94 million lbs. of air pollution annually from the landfill and gas plants alone, including particulate, carbon monoxide and other harmful gases. The fire has also increased odor incidents in the community, resulting in 47 formal complaints in one day.
- Rumpke has other options. It has recently invested $6 million in their St. Bernard recycling facility and $2.5 million in their Dayton glass recycling plant. They are uniquely positioned to benefit from increased recycling in our region.
What about the township’s right to decide for itself?
Colerain Township denied Rumpke’s zoning request for this expansion in 2006. Rumpke sued, stating that the denial was a violation of their constitutional rights and furthermore, they were a public utility and exempt from local zoning laws. In 2009 a Hamilton County district court judge ruled in their favor and the township is appealing the decision.
Resources
The Future is Now: A Citizens’ Audit of the Rumpke Sanitary Landfill, Property Owners Want Equal Rights (P.O.W.E.R.) and Ohio Citizen Action
Property Owners Want Equal Rights, Inc.
Administrative Orders from OEPA and the Action Plan regarding the fire
Recycling programs in the area
Kentucky recycling facilities by county
Property Owners Want Equal
Rights (P.O.W.E.R.), and statewide environmental group Ohio Citizen Action
Not sure if I’m barking up the work tree or not. Shouldn’t we attack the root of the problem, like getting more people to recycle?
We could petition to change the way recycling is done. So there is also an incentive. Like have a system that offers tax deductible rewards – the workers who go around picking up recyclables gets a check list, one mark for a properly setup recycling bin. This list goes into a database, then once a year it’s tallied and is ducted from tax.
Rumpke gets a larger profit from the number of people recycling, and the community gets ‘cash back’ on top of feeling good about it.
Thanks for your comment, John.
You are absolutely not barking up the wrong tree – we DO need to increase recycling rates as well. We have been working on Cincinnati’s curbside recycling program since its inception and are ramping up our involvement even more, as part of this landfill campaign. Cities like Montgomery and now Cincinnati that have committed to the RecycleBank program (http://www.recyclebank.com/how-it-works), are improving public participation with the same sort of reward incentive you describe.
Another incentive to recycle is the limited lifespan of all landfills. Knowing we have 15 years of capacity at Rumpke’s Colerain Township landfill, as opposed to the 65 more years they are proposing with this expansion, will make people take waste stream reduction, recycling and composting more seriously.
Recycling will occur when market factors make it profitable. If anyone thinks landfills are a problem try living in a city without one. The city would shut down within a month. Don’t be naive people.
Thanks for your comments, Mike. While you are correct about the volatility of recycling markets being an obstacle to promoting more recycling (at least among for profit waste haulers and processors like Rumpke), cities that don’t rely on landfills are precisely the models we should be examining. When people must find alternatives to landfilling, they have done so. It’s a chicken and egg proposition. Do we start prioritizing recycling in southwest Ohio because we are running out of landfill space, or do we wait to transition away from landfills when our recycling rates improve? The latter of those two strategies hasn’t worked very well, which is why we are working to stop the “eastern expansion” in Colerain Township. Rumpke is the primary beneficiary of the status quo solid waste management plan in our region. It is the public at large that will benefit from diverting waste from landfills.
It seems to me that the expansion issue will be decided by the courts. There isn’t much leverage in trying to disrupt that process, which is, after all, a legal one. Much better to encourage recycling in whatever way possible. I live in the city of Cincinnati, where a program is in place to reward recycling, along with a better method for collecting recycleable materials. This is where we should put emphasis.