Close Eco-Vista landfill, then fund the cleanup

Many do not understand what is going on at the Eco-Vista landfill.

People lived in the Tontitown/Harmon community long before Eco-Vista purchased the land. It is classified as a nonhazardous dump, but hazardous materials go in, such as a boat and its hazardous contents that recently caught fire outside the lined containment area, causing multiple departments to respond.

In my experience of operating a boiler in the 1990s, burning of vapors before their release creates chemical changes. With proper testing, I feel acrolein will be evident from the Eco-Vista emissions. It’s also known through studies that waste decomposition in landfills generally can emit benzene, vinyl chloride gases and carcinogens.

Eco-Vista claims that because recent testing found toxins upwind of the landfill, the pollutants must originate elsewhere. That is nonsense, because days prior, the winds changed directions and concentrated toxins lingered.

Eco-Vista inexcusably lacks industry-standard controls, like scrubbers routinely used at other landfills that neutralize vapors.

The renewable natural gas plant lights up the community at night with a giant flare. Unshielded flames shoot 30 feet into the air with fumes reaching children in a residential area just 200 yards away.

Eco-Vista is not needed. Boston Mountain Solid Waste District received a quote to take all their trash to another location at no more than a 4% cost increase. Springdale already does.

Subdivisions and longtime country folks are overwhelmed and feel helpless. WM and the Department of Environmental Quality are directly responsible. There was no third-party monitoring for 40 years, and no one knows if current testing will even continue.

Eco-Vista should be closed now. Fumes are smelled up to three miles away, including at an elementary school two miles away. Smells get worse by the day due to increasing trash intake, which will worsen with the unbelievably proposed expansion. People buy houses nearby and only learn about the gases when the wind shifts in their direction

Many think the dump is needed because Northwest Arkansas is expanding. That is backwards. It needs to go away because it is hindering Tontitown’s growth and health.

The National Guard proved the air is polluted. DEQ refused to close intake and identify updated options. Monitoring wells will be put in for leachate leaks but in karst ground, these are known to be unreliable. DEQ says they’re fine. DEQ is not being truthful and is ramming this through because it makes close to $2 million dollars a year from Eco-Vista.

People are getting sick. My neighbors have respiratory problems. Some have died from breathing, heart issues and cancer. Where is the medical study? No comprehensive third-party study of the area’s wells has been done and none are planned.

DEQ is covering this all up and one day, after enough damage has been done and enough people have gotten sick or died, it will all come out. It will be too late for us.

No landfill belongs in the middle of a city. DEQ , Arkansas government and Gov. Sanders, what are you waiting on? Hazardous vapors and contamination are killing us!

KENNETH LOVETT

Fayetteville