If we build it they will come. Invest big dollars in an incinerator, and we’re committed to feeding it with all our waste materials. Build a landfill and we’ve invested in burying our resources. Develop a resource recovery park, however, and we’ve set in motion a system that is designed to support reuse, recycling, and composting. The infrastructure our community invests in today determines how we manage our resources.
The rules need to change
The Erie Town Trustees will soon decide whether to allow the expansion of Republic Services’ Front Range Landfill from 200 acres to 322 acres. There has been no operating landfill in Boulder County since Marshall Landfill was designated a Superfund site for contaminating local drinking water and closed in 1992. Front Range Landfill, located in Weld County, is one of the landfills that now serves our community.
Some states such as Maine only allow landfill expansions in areas with recycling programs that successfully meet state recycling goals, but this is not the case in Colorado. Proposals here are judged on their technical merit only. So as long as the landfill has been operating within the requirements of the law, little stands in the way of its expansion – not even the fact that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other experts say all modern landfill liners will eventually leak their toxic contents into surrounding soil and water. Eco-Cycle testified about this to the Erie Planning Commission to no avail. Therefore, we need to change the rules that govern landfill permitting and expansion in Colorado.
Comparing short-term gains to long-term liabilities
The Town of Erie receives about $200,000 a year in surcharges from the landfill, and Republic is offering the Town of Erie one million dollars of surcharge revenues up front to sweeten the deal. At a town board meeting in May, Town Trustee Tom Van Lone wanted to know exactly what Erie’s income from the landfill would be. “This is a lot about money,” he said. “There’s no other reason to have a landfill in our community.” He makes a good point, but to calculate an accurate number, the short-term financial gains need to be measured against the long-term costs.
First are the unrealized savings of not recycling. Once economies of scale kick in, recycling is cheaper than landfilling. Take the City of Loveland as an example. Loveland’s residents recycle 57% of their household waste, and the City’s operational costs average $61/ton to recycle and compost whereas it costs them $109/ton to landfill.
Then there are remediation costs. The City of Boulder found itself liable for a portion of the cost to clean up Marshall Landfill, owned by Allied Waste. Over eleven and a half years, $13.9 million dollars were spent on systems that pumped groundwater out from under the landfill for treatment before it could safely be released into the environment. Taxpayers covered 30% of that bill or $4.5 million.
Added to this are post-closure costs. Landfills need to be monitored and maintained for centuries, but Republic is only legally responsible for 30 years after the landfill closes, at which point the residents of Erie will pay considerable ongoing costs. The cost of replacing a landfill cover is approximately $120,000 per acre, or $14.6 million every 20 years for the proposed additional 122 acres. This does not include the existing acreage or monitoring for leaks, maintenance of the cover and clean-up. The EPA recently ruled that the City of Boulder is responsible in perpetuity for maintaining a 160-acre water-tight cover on Marshall Landfill. The day that someone can tell us how much per ton “forever” costs is the day we’ll finally know the true cost of landfilling.
Last are the health costs. Rachel’s Environment and Health News Weekly cites multiple studies that show populations living near landfills suffer increased incidences of leukemia and bladder cancer, and children suffer increased incidences of birth defects, low birth weight and smaller than average size. We can’t even begin to put a price tag on this.
The million dollars may buy Erie a recreation center, but the children enjoying it today will inherit the costs and environmental and health impacts of the landfill tomorrow. Shouldn’t we try recycling first?
