[Democrat hot air...] U.S. EPA will lead efforts to extinguish mystery fire smoldering in L.A. County landfill

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-12-21/u-s-epa-to-
investigate-mystery-of-burning-landfill

The U.S. EPA is now the lead agency tasked with containing a fire burning
deep inside Chiquita Canyon landfill.

As landfill operators struggle to extinguish a damaging fire deep within
Chiquita Canyon Landfill, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has
announced that it is taking the lead in efforts to contain the problem.

Since at least spring, acres of garbage have been smoldering in a closed
portion of the Castaic landfill, causing contaminated water to burst onto
surrounding hillsides and sending putrid odors into surrounding
neighborhoods.

The intervention of federal regulators has underscored the gravity of the
situation, which has placed Los Angeles County’s second-largest landfill
under intense scrutiny, and prompted calls for its closure.

The fire, which experts say may be due to the buildup of oxygen within the
landfill, has also raised question about the oversight of local air
regulators, who were aware of the increasing oxygen levels, public records
show.

“I welcome the U.S. EPA’s involvement,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor
Kathryn Barger. “They are stepping up to the task of helping identify
solutions and bringing resources to the table for an incident that has
gone on for far too long.”

Temperatures within the landfill have risen over 200 degrees, causing
gases to expand and water to boil. The resulting pressure increase has
sent piping-hot water bursting through the landfill’s cover and emitted
foul odors.

The intense heat has also melted portions of a gas collection system,
which consists of long polyvinyl chloride pipes that vacuum out methane
and odorous sulfur gases.

Although it’s unclear if the underground fire is continuing to spread, the
30-acre affected area could take 2-4 years to cease burning, according to
a Dec. 12 report from CalRecycle, the state agency that oversees waste
management.

Eight state and local regulatory agencies have assembled under the EPA to
discuss what steps need to be taken to prevent the underground fire from
chewing through more of the 639-acre landfill and spewing dangerous
chemicals.

The landfill operator, Waste Connections, is anticipating significant
financial liabilities due to the burning, according to a financial report
the company filed in November. It estimates that efforts to resolve the
situation could cost around $30 million in the second half of 2023, $75
million in 2024 and $40 million in 2025.

Waste Connections has already installed several dozen new gas wells, some
made with steel casings that can withstand the intense heat. The landfill
has also installed a new flare to burn off flammable gases and a concrete
drainage system to better collect polluted water so that it can be trucked
offsite.

But state and county officials want the landfill to do more. Specifically,
they have called on operators to apply 2 feet of dense soil, such as clay,
to seal any cracks and better suppress fumes that have sickened residents
in nearby Val Verde.

CalRecycle has also encouraged Waste Connections to review steps taken by
an East Sparta, Ohio, landfill that experienced an underground fire in
2005. That fire burned for more than a decade and spread to nearly 90
acres.

Republic Services, the operator of the Ohio landfill, ultimately
constructed a fire break — a trench separating the affected area from
other parts of the site. The $6 million project was supervised by the U.S.
EPA and state regulators.

Steve Cassulo, Chiquita Canyon’s district manager, said the landfill
doesn’t believe installing a 2,000-foot-long fire break or barrier is
necessary or feasible. Chiquita Canyon would need to excavate and relocate
at least 20 million tons of waste to construct an effective buffer.

“The potential risk to human health and the environment in undertaking an
excavation of such magnitude is incredibly great,” he said.

Cassulo noted that such work has been done in some extreme cases, such as
in Bridgeton, Mo., where landfill operators needed to isolate areas of
radioactive waste. However, those circumstances don’t exist at Chiquita
Canyon, he said.

The landfill is expected to install temperature probes next month that
will help regulators better monitor the fire at Chiquita Canyon. If it
continues to spread, agency officials will discuss the possibility of
mandating action.

As environmental regulators and the landfill debate over how to control
the situation, the cause of the fire still remains uncertain.

However, the leading theory is that the landfill’s gas extraction wells
may have overdrawn methane and other gases, inadvertently introducing
oxygen deep inside the landfill’s well system. This oxygen can speed up
the decomposition of organic waste, produce heat and eventually spark a
fire.

Chiquita Canyon’s records show it had struggled with high oxygen levels in
hundreds of wells in the year leading up to the fire. Elevated
temperatures were also observed in dozens of wells.

Local regulators were also aware of these issues long before the incident,
according to public records.

Between 2011 and 2016, the South Coast Air Quality Management District
signed off on several of the landfill’s requests to operate its wells with
higher oxygen levels and temperature limits, which experts say could
increase the risk of an underground fire.

This includes the gas well that CalRecycle has identified as the “point of
origin” and others nearby — which were approved to operate at 145 degrees
rather than 131.

Other gas wells in other portions of the landfill were allowed to operate
with up to 10%-15% oxygen present, two to three times the previously
permitted amount.

The air district didn’t return several requests for comment.

“Frankly, I would not have allowed it,” said Mike Mohajer, a retired
engineer with the L.A. County Department of Public Works. “It doesn’t make
sense. Oxygen increases the chance of a fire. And higher temperature — the
same thing — it’s a higher potential for a fire.”

Although landfills in Southern California are still bound by stricter
local permits, the U.S. EPA in 2021 relaxed temperature requirements for
landfill gas wells, increasing the allowable levels from 131 degrees to
145 degrees. It also removed the requirement for oxygen limits, previously
set at 5%.

Experts say it could set the stage for more incidents like Chiquita
Canyon.

“From my standpoint, there’s a lot of things happening that show we have
to be conservative when we’re constructing, operating and maintaining
landfills,” Mohajer said. “We can’t lose control of them.”


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