The cleanup of history’s worst peacetime oil spill is generating thousands of tons of oil-soaked debris that is ending up in local landfills, some of which were already dealing with environmental concerns, The Associated Press reports.
The soft, absorbent boom that has played the biggest role in containing the spill alone would measure more than twice the length of California’s coastline, or about 2,000 miles. More than 50,000 tons of boom and oily debris have made their way to landfills or incinerators, federal officials told The Associated Press, representing about 7 percent of the daily volume going to nine area landfills.
A month after the oil stopped flowing into the Gulf, the emphasis has shifted toward cleanup and disposal of oily trash at government-approved landfills in coastal states.
Environmental Protection Agency officials say the sites meet federal regulations, are equipped to handle the influx of waste and are being monitored closely, although three sites have state environmental issues. State records show two are under investigation and one was cited in May for polluting nearby waters.
Some residents and experts question the wisdom of adding crude-covered refuse to dumps, since it could take years for potential problems to surface. They worry about the impact on groundwater if contaminants leach past liners enclosing the decaying garbage.
“Common sense would tell you you probably shouldn’t keep dumping there if there are already problems,” said Eric Schaeffer, a former head of the EPA’s enforcement office who now heads a Washington-based legal advocacy group. “EPA needs to be able to say why despite the violations and discharges these are safe.”
Weathered oil is less toxic than fresh oil, the EPA says, but can still contain some levels of benzene and other risky chemicals.
Both BP and the EPA are sampling the waste each week at the landfills, and the EPA and U.S. Coast Guard officials alike say so far it has not turned out to be hazardous. In some landfills, the spill waste is being mixed directly with regular household and industrial trash, which can contain chemicals, plastics and food.
It is too soon to tell if the potential hazards from the oily waste would be greater than any risks posed by what’s already in the landfills, experts say. That will depend on the volume of the Gulf trash, the mass of industrial chemicals already there and how all those agents interact over time, said Conrad Volz, who directs the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health.
In the meantime, the alternative to using already troubled landfills is placing oily waste in other dumps without environmental issues — where oily waste’s potential impacts could be tracked separately, experts say.
“The oily waste may not be the most toxic thing in those landfills,” said Kurt Pennell, an environmental engineer at Tufts University who sits on a National Research Council committee studying groundwater problems near landfills and Superfund sites. “But obviously if … the landfill isn’t well controlled, that is problematic.”
EPA Assistant Administrator Mathy Stanislaus, who oversees the agency’s waste management plans, said the landfills can handle the oily waste properly.
“The landfills … have the system in place, the kind of liner, the kind of monitoring systems to manage this so that there are not environmental impacts,” Stanislaus said in an interview. “If there are any issues of concern, we will revisit.”
The Gulf trash’s trip to the landfill begins in oiled marshes and beaches where tar balls washed up regularly. Recently, near the mouth of the Mississippi, workers standing in small boats collected 16,000 feet of oily absorbent boom in one day alone from waters surrounding one oil-covered marsh.
