Building on landfills risky
Land often desirable, but rotting trash leads to troublesome gas
By Spencer Hunt THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The Golf Village at Central Park in Gahanna offers golfers two nine-hole courses and a clear view of Downtown Columbus. That’s quite a turnaround for an old dump.
The complex was built atop the former Ecol-Bedford No. 1 Landfill, which closed in 1995. Old landfills are attractive to city development officials because they often are among the last available spaces in cramped urban landscapes.
But building on landfills is a risky venture.
The managers of the Phoenix Golf Links on the South Side were sued this month by the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio, which claims repairs are years overdue to a system that destroys explosive gases that percolate from the former Model Landfill.
And in Cuyahoga County, the owners of the City View shopping center in Garfield Heights spent years cleaning up landfill gases that leaked from two former dumps beneath the site.
Donald Shapiro, a court-appointed receiver working to revive the bankrupt retail center, said that although the problems have been erased, “I think anyone who undertakes a project to build on a landfill is staring down a host of challenges.”
Chief among them is a mixture of methane, carbon dioxide and other compounds that rises from rotting garbage. It can seep into basements and sewers, where it can build up to explosive concentrations.
Water that mixes with the garbage also can leak, posing a health threat to people and a pollution risk to streams.
That’s why the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates landfills, must first approve any plans to build on them.
The agency typically requires developers to cover landfills in a thick layer of clay and install wells and pipes that shunt landfill gas to a flare. Some developers also are required to install pumps to keep landfill liquids, called leachate, contained.
- Owners must keep track of these systems and file regular reports with the EPA.
“We’ve got to file those reports for 30 years,” said Joel Teaford, director of the Central Ohio Community Improvement Corporation, a nonprofit group that owns the Gahanna golf course and oversaw its construction.
Teaford said the Gahanna course uses a pump to send landfill liquids to a Columbus sewage-treatment plant and a flare to burn off methane.
These systems require regular maintenance, which includes clearing clogs from pipes and repairs to blowers and incinerators, said Paul Flory, SWACO’s environmental-compliance manager.
SWACO officials would not comment on the lawsuit that was filed Jan. 23 in Franklin County Commons Pleas Court. Calls to Phoenix Golf Ltd. were not returned.
The lawsuit states that a 2001 upgrade to the gas collection system wasn’t properly installed and hasn’t been adequately operated and repaired. The suit seeks to terminate leases held by Phoenix and related companies and demands money to pay for the repairs.
But there are success stories similar to Gahanna’s.
Erin Strouse, an Ohio EPA spokeswoman, said one of them is the former Gowdy Park landfill, which was located at the intersection of W. 3rd Avenue and Olentangy River Road near Rt. 315 and closed in the 1970s.
The site now hosts the Time Warner Cable headquarters and two Ohio State University Medical Center buildings.
Eric Wagenbrenner, vice president of Wagenbrenner Development, said the company burned gas during construction until it diminished to a point that small amounts of remaining gas are sent to a passive disposal system housed in an outbuilding.
“Gowdy wasn’t a real deep landfill. There wasn’t a lot of trash,” Wagenbrenner said.
shunt@dispatch.com
TOM DODGE DISPATCH The Golf Village at Central Park was built in Gahanna on the site of a landfill that closed in 1995. The owners say it has the proper pumps and flares to deal with waste from the site.
