Environmental groups urge closing of CT’s only ash landfill

Environmentalists sounded off Wednesday against plans to keep Connecticut’s only ash disposal landfill operating for the next several decades in Putnam, where they say it threatens to leak contaminants into local groundwater and the nearby Quinebaug River.

The landfill, operated by Wheelabtrator since 1999, is the disposal site for about 525,000 tons of ash produced each year by trash-toenergy plants in New York and Connecticut, including the company’s large incinerator in Bridgeport.

However, Wheelabrator said it will likely run out of space to dispose of that ash in the next few years, unless it is granted permission to expand its current 60acre site to about 128 acres. That would expand its life cycle by up to 30 years and allow millions of additional tons of ash to be dumped there.

Closing the dump would force ash produced in Connecticut to be routed to other facilities in Massachusetts and other surrounding states, the company said in documents.

The company’s request to expand the landfill and modify its existing permits is under review by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, which granted preliminary approval to the project in June. Local opponents subsequently petitioned to force a public comment hearing Wednesday, at which environmental advocates raised numerous concerns over the project while local officials defended Wheelabrator’s track record in the area.

Opponents questioned the need for the proposed landfill expansion by pointing to the planned closure of one of the largest incinerators sending ash to the site, and raised concerns about the presence of toxic PFAS chemicals in treated wastewater released into the Quinebaug River.

“The landfill expansion is an unnecessary and ineffective waste solution,” said Huda Khwaja, an attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation based in Vermont. “We are concerned that the ash at Putman contains chemicals that are not properly treated when discharged, and will inevitably leak within the units as well.”

While the proposed expansion received opposition from both regional environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Rivers Alliance of Connecticut, local residents were more divided over the plan. Several local officials pointed to a hefty sum — $60 million over 20 years — that Putnam has received in host fees for allowing Wheelabrator to dump its ash at the landfill.

That money has allowed the town to stabilize its tax rate and invest in capital projects, such as the recent construction of a new municipal building, Mayor Barney Seney said Wednesday. He added that he had no qualms with the company’s environmental record.

“I can say over 20 years, every issue that was brought up by any citizen within the town of Putnam, or any elected official, was handled in a professional manner and that the issue was addressed to the satisfaction of everybody involved,” Seney said.

While officials from other towns did not testify about the project, Wheelabrator Vice President Don Musial told a reporter Wednesday that the company has no plans to shutter its wasteto-energy plants in Bridgeport, Lisbon and Westchester, N.Y. If the Putnam landfill closes, waste ash from those plants would be exported elsewhere, he said.

The company regularly tests both its wastewater and nearby groundwater for contaminants, he added.

“Putnam monofill, we’ve operated for 20 years with very stringent environmental monitoring requirements,” Musial said. “The results of all of that monitoring has found nothing that would ever be attributed to an actual defect or an issue with the ash monofill.”

Beyond local concerns, opponents of the plan said that any contamination that occurs from the landfill has the potential to impact a broad swath of property down the Quinebaug River watershed and eventually Long Island Sound.

“We have not asked those constituents, ‘Do they want to welcome these toxins’?” said Hope O’Shaughnessy, a resident of Putnam who spoke against the project.

DEEP will hold an evidentiary hearing next week that will include testimony from both Wheelabrator and opponents of the project, before closing out the hearing process and issuing a final determination.