Town Board Starts Year Tackling Toughest Job
A deal between East Hampton Town and the State Department of Environmental Conservation will allow the town to spread the gargantuan task of closing its two landfills over the next 13 years. Although a final decision on how to do so was not made, the town also learned last week that its 1990 application for $4 million in state assistance finally had been approved.
Town Board members were shocked by estimates last year that the cost of permanently closing the landfills, as required, could be as much as $50 million - the largest capital project in town history.
But two productive meetings with the State Department of Environmental Conservation in the weeks before and after Christmas left the new Town Board and its team of landfill experts with some hope.
Long-Term Schedule
Steven Latham, the town's lawyer for landfill matters, reported, during a Town Board meeting Tuesday, that East Hampton had been found eligible for the maximum assistance, $2 million per landfill. The town will have to borrow the rest, which could have a huge effect on the tax rate.
But the returning Town Board members - Supervisor Cathy Lester and Councilmen Len Bernard and Peter Hammerle - appeared relieved that the D.E.C. had agreed to a "highly flexible" preliminary work schedule, as Mr. Latham put it.
"Keep in mind that you are not making a final decision now on whether to cap or mine. The decision now is whether to accept $4 million. . . . This is just the beginning of the process," Mr. Latham said.
Mine One, Cap Other
Dr. Kevin Phillips, who heads the town's team of consulting engineers and geohydrologists and is a partner in the Ronkonkoma engineering firm of Fanning, Phillips, and Molnar, and Peter Dermody, a geohydrologist with that firm, had recommended last year that the town cap the East Hampton landfill and mine the landfill in Montauk.
Although the consultants said mining, the removal of some 30 years' worth of garbage and land reclamation, was the better alternative environmentally, they advised the board that it would cost significantly more at East Hampton, the larger of the two dumps.
From a fiscal perspective, the elongated schedule will permit the town to borrow in smaller increments. Additionally, there are generous repayment schedules available with municipal bonds, sometimes as long as 20 or 30 years.
Logistically, it will give the town until the end of 1999 to polish a work plan for the Montauk landfill and begin mining, and until the middle of 2008 to finish the job. It also will delay any capping at Springs-Fireplace Road until the halfway point for mining Montauk, the end of 2003. That would allow the findings there to help steer the course for the East Hampton dump.
Capping East Hampton and mining Montauk was estimated to cost a combined $38.4 million, compared to $50 million for mining both.
"Nominal" Fines
Mr. Latham told The Star that the earlier meeting allowed him to correct a "miscommunication" that had caused the D.E.C. to cite the town for violations at its Springs-Fireplace Road facility, which resulted in a threat of up to $80,000 in fines.
While the possibility of "nominal" fines lingers, Mr. Latham said, all the violations have been cured and the D.E.C. has been appeased.
The violations stemmed from aD.E.C. report that work to remove old septic sludge lagoons near the East Hampton landfill was behind schedule and paperwork on the operation of the adjacent recycling center was not filed on time. Mr. Latham said these situations were quickly brought up to date when the Town Board learned of them.
Ways To Recoup
Dr. Phillips said the second of the two meetings, on Dec. 30, went "extraordinarily well." He said the town and the D.E.C. took just a half hour to agree on a preliminary schedule for closing the two landfills and to hear the news of the $4 million grant.
Landfilling at the dumps ceased in 1993.
The consultants were quick to say the D.E.C. had agreed the town could mine East Hampton if something compelling turned up in Montauk to change the Town Board's mind about capping. And, they agreed there were ways to cut costs that should be explored.
Selling the hundreds of tons of gravel estimated to be in the Montauk landfill and reclaiming the land there for another use, if permitted by the D.E.C., could help the town recoup millions, and using town employees to do some or all of the work could be cheaper than hiring a contractor, they advised.
Capping Problems
While cheaper, capping is not without disadvantages, as well. It requires the 100-foot-high mountain between Springs-Fireplace Road and Acca bonac Highway to be regraded to half its height, a three-year project that would cause significant odor and require the monitoring of the area for groundwater contamination and methane gas build-up for at least 30 years.
A good portion of the $4 million in assistance will go toward paying down previous loans for lawyers, engineers, land around the East Hampton dump, where a series of monitoring wells were required to be installed, and the wells themselves.
Supervisor Lester noted, however, that the town also had applied for nearly $72 million in grant money and low-cost financing for a variety of capital projects, including landfill closure and the construction of the recycling and composting plants.
Helpful Infusion?
Though that money is expected to take several years to arrive, it would pay off or refinance loans for already completed projects and help keep the tax rate from soaring.
During Tuesday's meeting, the returning members of the board also tried to bring the two new members, Councilwoman Pat Mansir and Councilman Job Potter, up to speed on the complexities of the project. They had many questions, but appeared, by the end of the hour-long discussion, satisfied that the town was moving in the right direction.
At one point, Mr. Potter wondered whether it was possible to do nothing in Montauk, which was found to be a benign landfill with no groundwater contamination, and Ms. Mansir asked whether the consultants weren't overlooking some third option that could be cheaper or simpler.
Warning Given
"Will we look back in 20 years and say 'Aw, gee, if only we'd known. . . ?'" she asked.
Dr. Phillips warned, instead, that in 20 years people were likely "to look back and say it was ridiculous to spend all that money capping landfills; they're going to say they're all split, they're leaking, and we're still getting plumes of contamination in the groundwater," he said, adding that the expense and futility of capping was the board's impetus for studying mining.
Dr. Phillips went on to explain that a third method of closing landfills, known as phyto-remediation, had been tried experimentally upstate. Willow trees were planted to stabilize the surface of the landfill and to absorb rainwater so it wouldn't carry contaminants into the groundwater.
No Successes
But the roots of the willow trees absorbed heavy metals from the garbage below, and the trees themselves had to be disposed of in a landfill as a result, said Mr. Dermody.
The same team of consultants had also, it was explained, tried to negotiate an easier and cheaper alternative to capping for Fishers Island. While the D.E.C. did relax some of the rules, Mr. Latham said they argued unsuccessfully that the island's comparatively tiny dump posed no environmental hazard and should be exempt altogether.
"The D.E.C. will not give full relief and the number of variances it will grant is limited," said Mr. Latham. He added that East Hampton had managed to procure a few variances of its own during recent negotiations, such as a 75-percent reduction in the number of monitoring wells the agency had once wanted installed.
Further Aid?
Councilman Potter also wondered if the state would offer more financial assistance later, but Mr. Latham said that was unlikely. No municipality had gotten more than East Hampton, though it costs far more than $2 million to close even a small landfill. He suggested a statewide lobbying effort by the State Association of Towns.
The consultants, D.E.C. officials, and the Town Board will explain the details of the agreement and answer questions at an informational meeting set for 7 p.m. on Jan. 22. The meeting will be at the LTV Studio in East Hampton.