LANDFILL CLEANUP PROGRESS ON THE OTTAWA RIVER
INTRODUCTION
The City of Toledo has made clean up of the Ottawa River a priority. This is reflected in remediation efforts on six contaminated sites along the river. These consist of:
- three former municipal landfills (Dura, Stickney, and Tyler),
- one former industrial landfill (North Cove), and
- one industrial waste disposal site (XXKEM).
CONDITION OF THE RIVER
The Ottawa River suffers poor water quality, evidenced by excessive bacteria and inadequate dissolved oxygen. Much of its problems are due simply to the morphology of the river (its form and structure):
- There are few riffles, especially within the City of Toledo, consistent with the flatness of the surrounding topography and the extensive channelization that has occurred,
- The stream is sediment laden,
- The flow velocity is so slow that much deposition occurs,
- Flow reversals commonly occur several times a day in the lower 8 miles of the river due to the Lake Erie seiche effect,
- The reversals aggravate the sedimentation problem, and
- During many summers the flow of the river slows to a trickle, leading to stagnation and oxygen depletion.
It is a given that the Ottawa River will never be a babbling mountain brook. But its condition has been aggravated by:
- runoff from agricultural and construction sites,
- urban stormwater drainage,
- discharges from inadequate septage treatment systems,
- industrial discharges,
- combined sewer overflows, and
- seepage of leachate from riverside landfills
DURA AVENUE LANDFILL
Perhaps the most notorious human impacts on the river have been the discharges from solid waste disposal sites that were located in what was once considered to be "worthless mosquito-infested marshland" (now we would say "valuable wetlands") along the river. The notoriety of the disposal sites is largely due to the mid-1980s discovery of unsafe levels of PCBs in sediments and leachate in conjunction with the remedial investigation for the Dura Avenue Landfill. That discovery led to posting the river with signs warning against contact with the water and ingestion of fish.
Dura Avenue Landfill consists of 70 acres on the west and north bank of the Ottawa River that were used for the disposal of solid waste from about 1952 to 1980. The site contains hazardous materials because the waste stream included industrial and commercial wastes until 1968.
In 1993 Toledo began constructing a five-million-dollar Immediate Remedial Measure (IRM) to intercept PCB-laden leachate that was seeping into the river from the worst part of Dura Landfill. The IRM consists of leachate collection and pretreatment systems and a 780-foot long barrier wall along the Ottawa River and Sibley Creek. This system has been in operation since 1994.
It is noteworthy that the volume and concentrations of the collected leachate are significantly less than predicted by the Remedial Investigation. Re-evaluation of the health risks for the site indicates that the IRM by itself brought the site risks below the threshold of 10(-4) individual lifetime cancer risk (one in ten thousand), that generally requires some intervention or remediation. But the risks remained above the 10(-6) point of departure that generally warrants further evaluation.
Further remedial action at Dura was stymied for five years because various negotiations and legal actions to achieve settlement agreements and consent orders went nowhere. The logjam was broken in the spring of 1999 when a settlement agreement was reached between the City of Toledo and a group of industrial parties by building on relationships established and experience gained in the Stickney and Tyler Landfills projects. Construction of the final remedy at Dura began in October 1999, under a Consent Order between Ohio EPA, the City of Toledo, and a number of industrial parties.
The purpose of the Remedial Action at the Dura Avenue Landfill was to construct a landfill cover system consisting of layers of soil and geosynthetic materials similar to that described below for the Stickney and Tyler Landfills. The soil used in the new landfill cap system was excavated from the adjacent Stickney West Industrial Park (SWIP) site. The cover system reduces infiltration of rainwater through the fill/refuse material and the subsequent discharge of contaminated groundwater to the Ottawa River and Sibley Creek. Aerial photographs of Dura Avenue Landfill and adjacent sites are included below on this web page.
The Remedial Action was substantially completed in December 2000 at a capital cost of about $8.9 million. Punch list items, including service road work and landscaping touch up, were completed in November 2001. Ohio EPA confirmed the completion by an inspection on December 7 and a letter on December 19, 2001. The City submitted the Construction Completion Report and Certification on February 20, 2002, and Ohio EPA approved the submittals by letter on July 8, 2002.
The City partially financed its $5.4 million share of the Remedial Action cost with a $2.1 million loan from the Ohio Water Pollution Control Loan Fund. The loan is being paid off with semi-annual payments of $75,691.86 ($151,383.72 per year) from the City's general revenue fund. The 20-year repayment began in January 2002 and will be completed in July 2021.
Under settlement agreements with the City, a number of companies have contributed a total of $11.2 million toward remediation of Dura Avenue Landfill. $1.6 million of the monies were used to reimburse the City's general revenue fund for some of the expenses incurred for construction and operation of the IRM. A group of industrial parties paid $0.9 million directly for design of the remedial action and another $2.5 million directly for purchase and installation of the geosynthetics portion of the capping system. A total of $6.2 million of the settlement funds has been placed in special interest-bearing accounts reserved for the landfill. $3.2 million of those funds have been used to cover the City's remaining capital costs. The remainder of the funds and the investment earnings are being applied toward the City's costs for 30 years of ongoing operation and maintenance of the remedy. These funds are currently projected to cover the estimated operation and maintenance costs through year 2018.
During the Remedial Investigation, an area near the main gate of the landfill was identified as having levels of contamination intermediate between the levels found in the IRM collection area and those found in the main body of the landfill. A leachate extraction well was installed in the main gate area as part of the year 2000 Remedial Action. Trial operation of the main gate extraction well occurred in December 2000 and January 2001. Regular operation of the well began in February 2001.
Monitoring data collected to date indicate that the Remedial Action is having the intended beneficial effects. The average leachate level in the landfill's twenty-one interior monitoring wells and piezometers (special wells for checking groundwater or leachate levels) has dropped over time. Also, the average leachate level in the landfill's ten river perimeter monitoring wells has dropped as well. This indicates that the capping system at Dura is functioning as intended.
STICKNEY AND TYLER LANDFILLS
The Stickney and Tyler Landfills were also found to be leaching contaminants into the Ottawa River. The Stickney Avenue Landfill comprises about 50 acres across Stickney Avenue from the new Jeep Plant. The Stickney Removal Action also encompasses the five-acre XXKem Industrial Site, for a total of 55 acres on the eastern bank of the Ottawa River directly across from Dura Avenue Landfill. The Tyler Street Landfill comprises about 41 acres on the opposite side of the Ottawa River and immediately upstream. The landfills were operated from the 1950s into the 1970s.
In 1993, USEPA approached a number of potentially responsible parties, including the City of Toledo and industrial entities, and requested that the Stickney and Tyler sites be investigated pursuant to authorities granted the agency under CERCLA (the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 9601 et seq.). A small group of industrial parties undertook the study under the Superfund Accelerated Cleanup Model, a USEPA program designed to shorten the investigation process when the remedy is predictable. The study, known as the Engineering Evaluation and Cost Analysis, was completed in 1995. It recommended capping the landfills with a multi-layer cover system to contain the wastes and leachate. USEPA approved the proposed Removal Action in 1996. The Stickney/Tyler Administrative Group (STAG), a larger group of over twenty potentially responsible parties including the City of Toledo, under an agreement with USEPA, completed design and began construction in 1997. The landfill caps were in place by the end of 1998, and completion was certified by USEPA in September 1999.
The Removal Actions consisted of the following:
- The Sites were cleared of vegetation and debris.
- The landfill surfaces and riverbanks were re-graded, and a drainage layer and riprap were placed on the riverbanks. At the request and expense of the City the design grade of the landfills was decreased to a nominal 3% to increase the potential for future economic development on the sites.
- A twelve-inch engineered base soil layer was placed over the re-graded materials.
- A gas collection and venting system was installed below the base layer.
- A multi-layer cap system consisting of a geosynthetic clay layer, 40 mil linear low density polyethylene geomembrane, a geosynthetic drainage layer, and a twenty-four inch protective cover soil layer was installed over the base layer.
- An erosion control and surface drainage system was constructed with outfalls to the Ottawa River (and, in the case of Dura Avenue Landfill, Sibley Creek).
- Monitoring wells, piezometers, and gas probes were installed throughout the landfill and at off-site monitoring points.
- Grass vegetation was established across the surface of the landfill.
The total cost of the Removal Action effort at the combined sites is about $24 million, about $15 million of which was actual construction cost. The City's share was about $7 million and was financed by a low interest loan from the Ohio EPA's Ohio Water Pollution Control Loan Fund.
STAG was responsible for ongoing operation and maintenance of the Stickney Avenue and Tyler Street Landfills, including monitoring of leachate levels and leachate concentrations. In early 2002, STAG installed an active landfill gas removal system near the western side of Tyler Street Landfill in response to elevated levels of landfill gas that were detected in gas monitoring probes outside the landfill. The active gas removal system has successfully controlled migration of gas toward the neighboring residential area. Additional monitoring and evaluation are underway to address concerns with possible gas migration toward commercial properties north of the western and eastern legs of the Tyler site and toward industrial and City of Toledo property south of the Stickney Avenue Landfill.
In July 2004, DaimlerChrysler announced a major expansion of its Stickney Avenue Plant. This $450 million investment would include the expansion of the existing plant and the addition of three (3) new supplier plants on their property located east of Stickney Avenue. This expansion would lead to increased vehicle production from 250,000 vehicles annually to approximately 460,000 vehicles a year. This increased production and the lack of available land due to the new suppliers strained DaimlerChrysler’s ability to store new vehicles. The City of Toledo undertook a development project to reclaim and utilize the Stickney Landfill as a vehicle storage area and construct a private use bridge over Stickney Avenue to accommodate this need. By doing so the City of Toledo assumed responsibility for the Operation and Maintenance of the site from STAG. This allowed the City to return a former Brownfield to productive use. Major construction of the parking lot and bridge was conducted in 2006 and became operational in early 2007.
UNNAMED TRIBUTARY
For a while Dura Avenue Landfill was tagged as the worst source of PCB pollution to the Lake Erie basin. It is clear now that that reputation was unwarranted. A much worse source was an industrial spill site just slightly upstream from the landfill. Sediments under a formerly unnamed tributary now known as Fraleigh Creek were found to contain PCBs at concentrations up to 15,000 times higher than found anywhere else in the Ottawa River system. A cooperative effort by Toledo, USEPA, Ohio EPA, and GenCorp resulted in the 1998 rerouting of the tributary and removal of 2,000 cubic yards of sediments containing 56,000 pounds of PCBs from the old bed of the tributary.
High concentrations of PCBs on the order of 1000 times those found elsewhere in the Ottawa River still remain in the river sediments at the former mouth of the tributary. The concentrations taper off sharply in both the upstream and downstream directions.
NORTH COVE LANDFILL
The former North Cove Landfill is located on property extending from the east end of Hillcrest Avenue near Willys Park eastward under Interstate 75 and the Ottawa River to the Jeep Plant parking lot. In 1995 DaimlerChrysler Corporation, the City of Toledo, and the Ohio Department of Transportation began a cooperative effort to study the former North Cove Landfill. The Final Remedial Investigation Report was submitted to Ohio EPA in November 1997. The Final Feasibility Study was completed in January 1998.
In January 1999 the same three parties entered into a settlement agreement for construction of a remedy for the North Cove Landfill. Negotiation of a Consent Order with Ohio EPA was completed in October 2002, and the Consent Order was issued in early 2003. Construction of the remedy began in 2003 and was completed in 2005. The main focus of the remedy is prevention of dermal contact by: installation of additional soil cover on the portion of the site owned by the City of Toledo west of I-75, armoring of the banks of Bowen Ditch and the Ottawa River, and planting of trees on the Ottawa River slope to enhance evapotranspiration of groundwater.
The City of Toledo developed its portion of the North Cove site for recreational reuse. DaimlerChrysler and ODOT were supportive of this effort and worked together with the City toward that end. Revisions to the remedy to allow incorporation of recreational improvements were discussed with Ohio EPA and received approval. Three public meetings were held in 2001 and 2002 to receive neighborhood input regarding reuse of the site prior to preparation of a specific plan. Residents living near the site expressed concerns about the challenges that the seclusion of the site may pose to security if it is opened to the public for recreational use. Therefore, the City decided to develop the site for what is termed "passive recreational use". It is now a grassy area with some trees , and paved walking trails following the basic route of the former Willys Test Track. The trails connect with the neighborhood streets and with Willys Park. North Cove Landfill is now known as Liberty Park.
SUMMARY
Combined remediation costs exceed $50 million for the six sites. The remediation projects are being completed with cooperation and funding participation from a large number of parties including multiple federal, state, and local government offices and private businesses.