Rostraver landfill, DEP reach agreement on liquids from oil, gas waste

A Rostraver Township landfill has reached an agreement with the state Department of Environmental Protection over the proper disposal of liquids generated by oil and gas waste.

The consent order and agreement requires Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill to pay a $24,000 civil penalty and undertake a number of corrective actions related to the handling of leachate — defined as any liquid that comes in contact with waste, according to DEP.

The landfill came under scrutiny last year after district attorneys in Washington and Fayette counties obtained a court order prohibiting the landfill from sending leachate to the Belle Vernon Municipal Authority’s sewage treatment plant on the Monongahela River.

The DAs sought the court order after learning that the municipal authority had terminated its contract with the landfill, effective June 1, 2019, over concerns that the leachate had become untreatable and potentially posed a threat to the river and source water for downstream drinking water plants.

The contract between the landfill and the municipal authority, in place since 1994, had allowed the landfill to send quantities of leachate to the treatment plant via pipeline. Higher-than-normal ammonia levels starting in 2018 raised alarms with the municipal authority board and its legal counsel, leading to the cancellation of the contract in 2019.

The source of the contaminants was drill cuttings and mud from unconventional drilling, or fracking, operations in southwestern Pennsylvania, according to the complaint filed by the DAs in Fayette County Common Pleas Court. Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill has been accepting oil and gas waste since 2010, according to DEP.

“These cuttings are buried within the landfill. When rain occurs, water will leach through the cuttings and become contaminated with the chemicals from the cuttings,” the complaint said.

As a result, the landfill shut off the pipeline and began trucking the leachate to treatment facilities in Ohio in May 2019, according to DEP.

Tuesday’s consent order and agreement alleges that the landfill violated its waste permit and the Solid Waste Management Act by trucking the leachate to treatment facilities in Duncansville; Butler County; Bellaire, Ohio; and Alliance, Ohio.

“(The landfill’s) current waste permit does not authorize the landfill to transport its leachate by tanker truck to any facility, and must be modified to allow even interim trucking,” DEP spokeswoman Lauren Fraley said. “Trucking is not an advisable permanent option for leachate management because of the inherent environmental risks of spills, accidents, and the local impact of as many as 18 daily truck trips.”

The agreement also requires the landfill to:

• Minimize leachate generation by reducing the working face of the active uncovered area where precipitation permeates through the landfill waste;
• Submit a permit modification application to authorize trucking of leachate on a temporary basis while the landfill pursues approval from DEP to install equipment to treat and evaporate leachate, and/or to use other methods to allow the landfill to cease routine trucking of leachate; and
• Submit documentation to DEP of agreements and authorizations for the treatment facilities currently accepting its leachate, along with notification if those facilities should change prior to DEP approving a modified leachate management plan.

The landfill has already informed DEP of its plans to install pre-treatment equipment and an evaporator as the primary means of treating leachate, according to the agreement. Any excess leachate that cannot be evaporated will be trucked away for off-site treatment and disposal.

Landfill President Rich Walton did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

Landfill spokeswoman Ro Rozier said the company was “pleased” with the DEP agreement and “has committed to investing substantial amounts of capital to purchase and install technology and equipment capable of treating and evaporating the leachate generated from the landfill on-site.”

Rozier continued, “We are confident that our plan for on-site treatment and evaporation will resolve the landfill’s recent leachate disposal issues.”

Following the 2019 court order, Washington County District Attorney Eugene Vittone and Fayette County District Attorney Richard Bower asked the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Environmental Crimes Section to investigate.

It is unclear how the DEP agreement affects that investigation.