To Test or Not to Test For Toxins at Alpha Ridge Landfill?

An independent chemist with a Ph.D. was apparently not enough to convince members of a Marriottsville community that a  at the Alpha Ridge Landfill is safe enough for their health or the health of their children.

Laura Green, chemist and founder of Cambridge Environmental, Inc., spoke with residents at a community meeting at Marriotts Ridge High School Monday night, answering questions that ranged from the technical to the emotionally charged.

She and her colleague, Stephen Zemba were hired by the county after a meeting in October when residents complained that the county had not done sufficient environmental impact testing or modeling. 

Currently landfill gas at Alpha Ridge is sent to a flaring station and burned, destroying the methane, which is a greenhouse gas, and releasing carbon dioxide, oxygen and nitrogen into the atmosphere.

The conversion project will instead use the methane to power a generator that will produce electricity that the county can sell to the grid.

Green deflected comments from the audience—“You don’t live here.” “You don’t have kids with asthma.” “I don’t trust you.”—to repeatedly tell the group that her modeling of a potential conversion facility showed that levels of toxins known as dioxins would be safe and that there was not a need for the $20,000–$30,000 regular "stack testing" for which residents were clamoring.

Using data that Green said was likely to yield higher levels than the county would actually see, she and Zemba concluded a landfill gas generator would release a fraction of the EPA-defined safe levels of dioxins.

“The impacts are so small,” she said, “so small that there’s no reason not to do it. And there’s a much better reason to do it,” recouping the energy in the form of electricity and making a profit as a result, she added. The county estimates that the $3.9 million project will pay for itself in about 15 years. It will have a 30-year lifespan.

Dioxins are a group of toxic chemical compounds that are created in different ways, including during the combustion of organic materials alongside chlorine. According to the EPA, they are produced in incinerators, residential fireplaces, cars, cigarettes and in landfill gas flares and generators.

“Relative to many of these combustion sources, the characteristics of [landfill gas] combustion are less conducive to dioxin/furan formation,” according to an EPA FAQ on landfill gas. 

Modeling done by Green and Zemba predicted direct neighbors could be exposed to just 1/1600 of the EPA-defined safe level of dioxin. But any toxin is still some toxin, residents said, and as long as there was some toxin, they wanted testing.

“You start talking about trace amounts of carcinogens, no matter how small, I care,” said Geff Ottman. He and his wife, Annmarie Ottman, were two of the most vocal residents at Monday’s meeting.

To residents, several of whom said they had children, any amount of toxin was enough to warrant a call for regular monitoring at the site.

“I think this is really a policy issue,” he said, “not so much a technical issue. So when you bring in a technical person to argue with me, you can beat me … I’m skeptical of experts.”

Despite the skepticism, Green said she believed she had a role to play as a scientist, even after one resident said from the back of the crowd that he’d heard and understood the science, but “I don’t care about it.”

“I guess I don’t really think he means it,” Green said.  “I think he does care about the science, I think we all do, that’s why we go to doctors, we care about people who are trained to do stuff. But he’s also saying that there’s a political process and that he’s suspicious that the community hasn’t had any power in this. And I get that.”

“You asked me, ‘Would I recommend testing?’” Green said to the audience of about 35. She responded that a single $20,000 "stack test," the most expensive post-emission test that residents wanted, would be a "good use" of the county's money. 

"But I am also saying once those data come in, unless they’re really weird, I think you’re done,” since the composition of the landfill gas is not expected to change in a way that would affect the creation of dioxins, she said.

Dioxins are produced because of the presence of certain chemicals in landfill gas, therefore the emissions put out by the generator can be predicted based on the composition of the gas that goes in. Since the chemicals that lead to the formation of dioxins are no longer being added to the landfill, according to Green, the composition of the generator's emissions won't change over time.

If residents were set on regular testing, she suggested that a chemical analysis of the incoming gas could be a useful, and more cost-effective test.

Zemba, her colleague, agreed from a safe distance. 

“I can see that having [the county] test things would make some sense,” he said. “At some level its like believing in god. You’ve got to trust. And it’s a question of one group building up credibility.” 

By the meeting’s end, few people expressed complete satisfaction.

The Ottmans said their minds hadn’t changed. “They’re still not going to test, and that upsets me,” Annmarie Ottman said after no definite decision was made at the meeting. “They didn’t give me much confidence.”

But one resident said officials presented their case.

“People came here so full of fear and they are not listening,” she said, asking to be identified simply as Linda because she thought her ideas would be unpopular with her neighbors. 

“It surprises me that they’re not concerned about everything else that’s in the air. People just weren’t listening.” 

For her part, Green said, “I think it was a good meeting, actually. I’m impressed that this many people came. 

Residents asked to be more involved in the process – to be kept up to date and for the Alpha Ridge Landfill website to be updated. Evelyn Tomlin, chief of the Howard County Bureau of Environmental Services, said she would look into updating the website and keeping those who signed in at the meeting up to date via email.

The project is currently in the design phase and the county is in the process of obtaining permits.