As Mess Is Sent to Landfills, Officials Worry About Safety

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/science/earth/15waste.html?hp


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The pompoms — balls of absorbent streamers laid down to soak up the oil as it reaches shore — are part of a growing mass of waste that is springing from the cleanup of what has been estimated as the worst oil spill in United States history.

About 35,000 bags — or 250 tons — of oily trash have been carted away from this beach, said Lt. Patrick Hanley of the Coast Guard, who is stationed at Port Fourchon. And as of Monday, more than 175,000 gallons of liquid waste — a combination of oil and water — had been sent to landfills, as had 11,276 cubic yards of solid waste, said Petty Officer Gail Dale, also of the Coast Guard, who works with at the command center in Houma.

Michael Condon, BP’s environmental unit leader, said that tests have shown that the material is not hazardous, and can safely be stored in landfills around the region that accept oil industry debris. The checklist and procedures involved, Mr. Condon said, are part of a process “we do very well and have done for a long time.”

But some local officials, environmental lawyers and residents who live near landfill sites are not convinced.

“There’s no way that isn’t toxic,” said Gladstone Jones III, a New Orleans lawyer who has spent much of his career trying to get compensation for plaintiffs he says have been harmed by exposure to toxic waste.

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His worry, he said, is that toxic material could leach into local aquifers from which more than 300 homes draw water.

“BP oil is responsible for polluting our sand beaches and our estuaries,” Mr. Ladner said.

Now, he added, “They pick it up, put it on trucks, take it four or five miles north and dump it on us again.”

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The waste from the oil spill — retrieved from beaches, barges that collect oily water skimmed from the ocean surface and wildlife refuges where oiled carcasses are stored — goes to a sorting facility; on Saturday, a truck took a large waste bin from the beach near here to the C-Port docks at Port Fourchon. At such facilities, Mr. Condon said, the debris is sorted, labeled and sent on to designated landfills, like the River Birch Landfill outside New Orleans, and the Colonial Landfill in Sorrento, between Houma and Baton Rouge.

The process is managed by a large group of contractors — local hauling, tracking and barging companies, environmental cleanup operations, testing companies and landfill operators — all organized for BP, Mr. Condon said, by Heritage Environmental Services, a waste disposal company.

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Speaking of material like the 20,000 gallons of waste liquid that had already come to his landfill from the spill, he said, “If it goes to a proper landfill, the proper landfill has all the controls necessary to keep it from reaching the aquifer.”
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its going to go into the aquifer, count on it

don't know if I trust any company with the word 'heritage' in the name

maybe its just me

[Lasher]

1. Right, it will get into the aquifer.

But that will take awhile and by then everybody will be thinking of something else. All according to plan. Nothing to see here, move along.

Edit to furnish link. This is how it works:

http://wvgazette.com/lgshort/200812160720