SUMMARY

The U.S. has 3,091 active landfills and over 10,000 old municipal landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. However, in the "good old days," every town (and many businesses and factories) had its own dump. According to the 1997 U.S. Census, there are 39,044 general purpose local governments in the United States - 3,043 county governments and 36,001 subcounty general purpose governments (towns & townships). One suspects that there are many more old and abandoned commercial, private, and municipal dumps than the 10,000 estimated by the EPA.

All landfills will eventually fail and leak leachate into ground and surface water. Plastics are not inert. State-of-the-art plastic (HDPE) landfill liners (1/10 inch or 100 mils thick) and plastic pipes allow chemicals and gases to pass through their membranes, become brittle, swell, and breakdown. 

"...82% of surveyed landfill cells had leaks while 41% had a leak area of more than 1 square feet," according to Leak Location Services, Inc. (LLSI) website (March 15, 2000).

According to Dr. Fred Lee, "detection in new landfills can be difficult since the only way to know this is detection in the monitoring wells. The likelihood of a monitoring well at a single or double lined landfill detecting an initial leak is very small." Monitoring wells should be located in areas most likely to detect contamination (i.e., testing the ground water after it has passed under the landfill.) See: Subchapter I: Solid Waste. Lined landfills leak in very narrow plumes, whereas old, unlined landfills will produce wide plumes of leachate. 

Old and new landfills are typically located next to large bodies of water (i.e., rivers, lakes, bays, etc), making leakage detection and remediation (clean-up) extremely difficult. This is due to the incursion of surface water in both instances. Federal and state governments have allowed landfill operators to locate landfills next to water bodies under the misguided principle: Detection by monitoring wells can also be very difficult at lined landfills. Lined landfills leak in very narrow plumes, whereas old, unlined landfills will produce wide plumes of leachate.

Ground water flows downstream, or toward nearby lakes and rivers. In some cases, monitoring wells have been located around landfills in areas least likely to detect leakage (i.e., upstream of the groundwater flow). This is in violation of federal law. See Code of Federal Regulations (CFR): Chapter I - Environmental Protection Agency, Subchapter I: Solid Waste / PART 258 (Updated 1997) - Criteria for Municipal Solid Waste Landfills (Adobe PDF). If a landfill is located next to a water body, then the monitoring wells should be located between the landfill and the water; or (if there is no space left), in the water. See: EPA's Ground Water Monitoring

All landfills could require remediation, but particularly landfills built in the last 60 years will require a thorough clean-up due to the disposal of highly toxic chemicals manufactured and sold since the 1940's. See:Remediation and Brownsfields 

DETAILS...

 SEE: THE BASICS OF LANDFILLS, plus LANDFILL DIAGRAM

New "WET" Landfills - BIOREACTORS - cause concerns:

• National Recycling Council By Notice dated April 6, 2000 (65 Fed. Reg. 18014), the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") requested comments and information concerning the design and performance of so-called "bioreactor landfills." We are writing in response to this request on behalf of our client, the National Recycling Coalition, Inc. (the "Coalition"). CARTER, LEDYARD & MILBURN
• Government "pro-bioreactor" info:
  • Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
  • National Institute of Health (NIH)

• Rachel's #371 (01/06/94): Superfund Dumps & Health
• Rachel's #226 (03/27/91): Toxic Gases Emitted From Landfills
• Rachel's #90 (08/15/88): MSW Leachate As Toxic As Hazardous Waste
• Rachel's #69 (03/21/88): Landfilling Low-Level Radioactive Waste

LEAKAGE info:  

• Landfills That Leak by Dennis E. Williams, Ph.D founder and president of GEOSCIENCE Support Services, Inc., 1326 Monte Vista Avenue, Suite 3, P.O. Box 220, Claremont, CA 91711, (909) 920-0707, formed in 1978 to provide consulting to the ground water industry. Dr. Williams has over 30 years of experience in ground water consulting, specializing in ground water planning, development and management, with specific emphasis on the ground water basins of Southern California./  
• Rachel's #37 (08/10/87): EPA Says All Landfills Leak
• Rachel's # 117 - The Best Landfill Liner: HDPE
• Mechanisms Of Leakage Through Synthetic Landfill Liner Materials Imperial College, Great Britain
• RECYCLING LEACHATE BACK THROUGH A LANDFILL: Based on the available literature, pumping leachate back through a landfill causes increased decomposition, and it seems logical that it would also create a super toxic leachate. In addition, it would most likely accelerate the decomposition of the liner itself, thereby allowing leachate to contaminate ground water at an increased rate.

LANDFILL EMISSIONS:  

• Rachel's #90 (08/15/88): MSW Leachate As Toxic As Hazardous Waste.
• Low Level Radioactive Waste by Judy Johnsrud, Sierra Club.
• Rachel's #69 (03/21/88): Landfilling Low-Level Radioactive Waste
• Rachel's #371 (01/06/94): Superfund Dumps & Health
• EPA's (CESQG) Page - EPA allows an unlimited number of "Conditionally Exempt Small Quantity Generators of Hazardous Waste" to dump hazardous waste in municipal waste landfills.
• BURNING LANDFILL GAS:
  • Primer on Landfill Gas as "Green" Energy Pennsylvania Environmental Network

  • Alliance For a Clean Environment (ACE)- This Pennsylvania group has collected a significant amount of information on landfill gas. 

  • TYPICAL CONSTITUENTS AND COMPOUNDS FOUND IN LANDFILL GAS

    TABLE 1:  Typical Constituents Found in Municipal Solid Waste Landfill Gas

    Component                                           Percent (dry volume basis)*

    Methane                                                   40-60%
    Carbon Dioxide                                        40-60%
    Nitrogen                                                       2-5%
    Oxygen                                                   0.1-1.0%
    Ammonia                                                0.1-1.0%
    Sulfides, disulfides, mercaptans,etc.             0-0.2%
    Hydrogen                                                   0-0.2%
    Carbon Monoxide                                      0-0.2%
    Trace Constituents                                 0.01-0.6%
    
    * Exact percentage distribution will vary with the age of the landfill.

    ---

    TABLE 2:  Typical Concentrations of Some Trace Compounds Found in Landfill Gas
    
    Component                                              Mean Concentration (pbV, parts per billion by volume)

    Toluene                                                      34,907
    Dichloromethane                                         25,694
    Ethyl Benzene                                               7,334
    Acetone                                                        6,838
    Vinyl Acetate                                                5,663
    Tetrachloroethylene                                       5,244
    Vinyl Chloride                                               3,508
    Methyl Ethyl Ketone                                     3,092
    Xylenes                                                         2,651
    1,1-Dichloroethane                                        2,801
    Trichloroethylene                                           2,079
    Benzene                                                        2,057

    SOURCE: G. Tchobanoglous, H. Theisen and S. Vigil, "Integrated Solid Waste Management, Engineering Principles and Management Issues," McGraw-Hill, New York, 1993. Shown here as reproduced in J.Wilcos, Ph.D., and W.Clister, "Waiting is Over: Landfills Have Clean Air Act Rules," Solid Waste Technologies, March/April 1996.

    Provided by Dan Knapp of Urban Ore, Berkley, California

    LANDFILL GAS & FIRE INFORMATION:

    • Rachel's #226 (03/27/91): Toxic Gases Emitted From Landfills
    • Rachel's #69 (03/21/88): Landfilling Low-Level Radioactive Waste
    • EPA: Air Emissions from Solid Waste Disposal
    • EPA: Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Municipal Waste Management -Draft Working Paper March 1997

    Write off for research papers from The University of Kuopio, Eastern Finland:
    Directory of papers: http://www.uku.fi/wwwdata/julkaisutoiminta/laitoksittain/ymptiet.html

    • Emissions of PCDDs, PCDFs and PCBs in waste landfill fires
    • Formation of polyaromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated organic compounds in municipal waste landfill fires

LANDFILL COVER: The EPA allows the use of toxic incinerator ash as daily landfill cover, instead of soil, as the public was originally told.

LANDFILL DETECTION: Old, grown-over landfills can be identified by using GRP (Ground Penetrating Radar) or by reviewing county or state aerial photographs that often go back to the 1960's.

• 'BUYER BEWARE' of Old Landfills and Contaminated Property
• Open Dumps & Littering
• Illegal Dumping at Epidemic Levels

LEAKAGE DETECTION COMPANIES:

• Leak Location Services, Inc. (LLSI)
• Longbore

COURT DECISIONS:

• Landfill Liability: Court Ruling Alters Superfund Landscape: This article is from Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection "UPDATE", September 13, 1996.
• Landfills & Wetlands: Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals destroys wetland protection, July 27, 1998.

LANDFILL LOCATIONS: Use TerraServer to locate Areas of Interest from Satellite Photos!

TULLYTOWN LANDFILL (terraced features, northeast of center) On the Delaware River, Tullytown, Bucks County, PA. View this area on Terra Server.