Here is a letter regarding the project from Illinois EPA
Go to Facebook to see the project progress: https://www.facebook.com/MIGDeWaneLandfill?fref=photo
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As part of the planned improvements to the site’s final top cover, a top layer of soil has been applied to the west side of the landfill and seed will be applied later to control erosion.
We are thickening the top cover on the south side and readying the area to apply grass seed.
MARY CLARE JALONICK 22 hours ago 0 shares
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to rule this fall on Dow AgroSciences' application to market Enlist, a new version of the 2,4-D herbicide that's been around since the 1940s. It's partly a game of catch-up for the agriculture industry, as many farmers are dealing with weeds that have become resistant to glyphosate, an herbicide commonly used on corn and soybeans now.
If approved, the 2,4-D would be used in combination with glyphosate.
An Agriculture Department decision on the company's genetically modified seeds also is expected this fall. In the department's final environmental review released last week, the USDA recommended approval. The agency said that if both the seeds and herbicide are approved, the use of 2,4-D could increase by an estimated 200 to 600 percent by the year 2020
Read more by clicking on the following: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/decision-could-boost-popular-weed-killer-071141969--finance.html
The U.S. government banned BP Plc on Wednesday from new federal contracts over its "lack of business integrity" in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, possibly imperiling the company's role as a top U.S. offshore oil and gas producer and the No. 1 military fuel supplier.
By Bob Balgemann
The face of Boone County Board District #2 will change
somewhat to reflect its population growth since 2000. But
beyond that few if any revisions are expected as the county
ponders redistricting, which happens after each census.
District #2 now has 19,378 residents, compared
with 18,474 in District #1 and 16,313 in District #3. A
preliminary revision calls for District #2 to be reduced to
18,036 residents, while District #1 would increase to 18,064
and District 3 to 18,065.
To make that happen there would be shifts in voting
precincts as follows:
Every voter north of Illinois Route 173 would vote in
District #1. This change would move 141 voters out of
District #2.
The area east of Caledonia Road would become part
of District #2, moving 551 voters out of District #1. Both
of those proposed revisions would affect Precinct #1 in
Caledonia.
Precinct #13 in Belvidere would become part of District
#3, taking 829 voters out of District #2.
And Precinct #14 in Belvidere would become part of
District #3, moving 923 voters out of District #2.
Number of Board Members to Stay the Same
District #1 County Board Chairman Bob Walberg at the
board’s May 18 meeting polled his colleagues on a number
of issues relating to redistricting. “I’m just trying to get
consensus from the commission,’’ he said.
Seven of the 11 in attendance favored keeping board
membership at 12 members, four from each district. District
#3 board member Terri Glass preferred the number to be
reduced to nine, saying, “There would never be any tie
votes and it would save money.’’
The number of member districts will remain at three, with
seven voting in favor of continuing to appoint the chairman,
rather than having county voters make that decision.
Members will continue to be paid $75 for each meeting
they attend. District #3 member Ken Freeman asked if the
per diem would remain in effect for another 10 years.
“No,” Walberg replied, “that (change) can happen
anytime.’’
Now that there is consensus on those issues, redistricting
will continue to be discussed at the committee level, before
returning to the board for final action.
EPA Raises Questions about Leachate System
County Administrator Ken Terrinoni said the leachate
in reducing the elevation of the leachate in the landfill.’’
Leachate is water that percolates through a landfill and
helps with the decomposition of waste. It may contain
toxics and if not collected properly could contaminate
groundwater.
RMT, Inc., out of Madison, Wis., will “perform the
landfill gas sampling, analysis and reporting as required
by IEPA,’’ according to a proposal letter submitted by the
company. “Emissions testing last was conducted in 1998
and more recent data is needed to complete the IEPA annual
emissions report.’’
Cost of the work would be approximately $10,700, but
that figure could increase because of potential health risks to
RMT employees, the letter stated. Workers will be provided
with coveralls, safety shoes, hard hats and eye protection.
“If additional protection is required … RMT will advise the
county/city (of Belvidere) of the needed protection and any
associated increase in compensation before proceeding with
the work.’’
Terrinoni said purpose of the testing is to see if the system
is working properly “and then convince EPA that it is working
properly. We need the help of these professionals.’’
known as high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking — carries significant environmental risks. It involves injecting huge amounts of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, at high pressures to break up rock formations and release the gas.
million gallons of wastewater that is often laced with highly corrosive salts, carcinogens like benzene and radioactive elements like radium, all of which can occur naturally thousands of feet underground. Other carcinogenic materials can be added to the wastewater by the chemicals used in the hydrofracking itself.
Confidential EPA Draft regarding the ecological problem is available at: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-documents-1.html#document/p1/a9895
We learned that no oil and gas service companies have sought — and no state and federal regulators have issued — permits for diesel fuel use in hydraulic fracturing,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman of California and two other Democratic members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, in the letter. “This appears to be a violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act.”
Oil and gas companies acknowledged using diesel fuel in their fracking fluids, but they rejected the House Democrats’ assertion that it was illegal. They said that the E.P.A. had never properly developed rules and procedures to regulate the use of diesel in fracking, despite a clear grant of authority from Congress over the issue.
the investigators said that three of the largest oil and gas services companies — Halliburton, Schlumberger and BJ Services — signed an agreement with the E.P.A. in 2003 intended to curtail the use of diesel in fracking in certain shallow formations.
Two years later, when Congress amended the Safe Water Drinking Act to exclude regulation of hydraulic fracturing, it made an express exception that allowed regulation of diesel fuel used in fracking.
Click on the following for more details: Diesel Use in Gas Drilling Cited as Violation of Safe-Water Law - NYTimes.com
The following history of the site as an EPA site is taken from the internet: http://www.epa.gov/region5superfund/npl/illinois/ILD980497788.htm
The yellow highlighting has been provided for your convenience.
CURRENT STATUS: See page 3—Based upon a consent decree in January 2006 gas wells and groundwater monitoring has been completed. In late 2010 additional ground water monitoring is scheduled.
Click on the photocopy to enlarge:
The following information is available form the US EPA at: http://cfpub.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.contams&id=0500551
Click on the photocopy to enlarge:
Remember: MIG stands for “Money in Garbage”
Mansfield is in Platt County and is part of the Champaign-Urbana SMSA
The EPA referred the case to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan in early October, according to agency spokesman Scott Mulford.
"After discussions with them we jointly decided it was the best course of action," Mulford said.
The agency's investigation led to field tile in the area. Mulford declined to say who or what business was responsible for the spill or what pollutant killed the fish. Earlier this fall the EPA said the likely source of the pollution was the Stone Ridge Dairy, an approximately 3,000-cow facility near Mansfield and Bellflower, northwest of Mahomet.
The Stone Ridge Dairy does not have a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, according to the Illinois EPA. The agency has come under scrutiny by environmental groups and the U.S. EPA for its administration of the NPDES program that regulates what are called point sources, including confined animal facilities such as the Mansfield dairy.
fish were found Sunday floating on the surface of the water and collected in booms that had been deployed to contain oil that leaked from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico…, "We don't want to jump to any conclusions because we've had some oxygen issues by the Bayou La Loutre Dam from time to time."
In the past 20 years, according to the public record, the DeCoster family operation, one of the 10 largest egg producers in the country, has withstood a string of reprimands, penalties and complaints about its performance in several states.
-- In 1996, DeCoster was fined $3.6 million for health and safety violations at the family's Turner egg farm, which then-Labor Secretary Robert Reich termed "as dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop we have seen." Regulators found that workers had been forced to handle manure and dead chickens with their bare hands and to live in filthy trailers.
-- In 1999, the company paid $5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit involving unpaid overtime for 3,000 workers.
-- In 2001, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that DeCoster was a "repeat violator" of state environmental laws, citing violations involving the family's hog-farming operations. The family was forbidden to expand its hog-farming interests in the state.
-- Also in 2001, DeCoster Farms of Iowa settled, for $1.5 million, a complaint brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that the company had subjected 11 undocumented female workers from Mexico to a "sexually hostile work environment," including sexual assault and rape by supervisors.
-- In 2002, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined the family's Maine Contract Farming branch $345,810 for an array of violations. The same year, DeCoster Egg Farms of Maine paid $3.2 million to settle a lawsuit filed in 1998 by Mexican workers alleging discrimination in housing and working conditions.
-- In 2003, Jack DeCoster paid the federal government $2.1 million as part of a plea agreement after federal agents found more than 100 undocumented workers at his Iowa egg farms. It was the largest penalty ever against an Iowa employer. Three years later, agents found 30 workers suspected of being illegal immigrants at a DeCoster farm in Iowa. And in 2007, raids at other DeCoster Iowa farms uncovered 51 more suspected undocumented workers.
-- In 2006, Ohio's Agriculture Department revoked the permits of Ohio Fresh Eggs because its new co-owners, including Hillandale founder Orland Bethel, had failed to disclose that DeCoster had put up $126 million for the purchase, far more than their $10,000, and was heavily involved in managing the company. By playing down DeCoster's role, the owners had avoided a background check into DeCoster's "habitual violator" status in Iowa. An appeals panel overturned the revocation, saying the disclosure was adequate.
-- In 2008, OSHA cited DeCoster's Maine Contract Farming for violations that included forcing workers to retrieve eggs the previous winter from inside a building that had collapsed under ice and snow.
Click on the following for more of this Washington Post story: Before salmonella outbreak, egg firm had long record of violations
A large hog slaughter operation proposed for the Quad Cities may cause pollution not only on the river but start mega-hog confinement operations across the region.
Click on the following for the story: Waterkeeper News: Triumph hog plant rears its head again in East Moline | The Rock River Times
OSHA inspected the center, 1230 S. Appleton Road, on June 15 and cited it for several violations, including missing cover plates for electrical boxes, no documentation of annual inspections for fire extinguishers and an electrical outlet held in place with duct tape.
improper drainage in the kennel area and damage to walls, ceilings and other spaces — about $35,000 worth of immediate repairs
meantime, purchase offers will be accepted for the Appleton Road property, even though it’s not officially on the market, after an interested buyer approached the county.
Click on the following for more details:
Boone County Animal Control to close for cleanup - Rockford, IL - Rockford Register Star
All owners of houses built before 1978need to read this article. The policy was adopted April 22, 2008, and goes into effect Thursday. It also applies to work started before but not completed by Thursday.
70 percent — about 59,000 homes — of the housing stock in Winnebago County and 60 percent of the housing stock in Boone County was built before 1978, the last year that it was legal to use lead-based paint in houses built or rehabilitated using federal money.
The EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting rule — issued April 22, 2008 — applies to any project affecting at least six square feet indoors or 20 square feet outdoors and requires contractors for projects that disturb lead-based paint in homes, child-care facilities and schools built before 1978 to be certified as having been trained in specific work practices to prevent lead contamination.
requires landlords, whether they are renovating the property themselves or hiring a contractor, to provide tenants with an EPA pamphlet about lead hazards and have the tenants sign a form acknowledging that they received the pamphlet before work begins.
Fines for noncompliance can run up to $37,500 per violation per day.The rule does not directly apply to homeowners doing work in their own houses, although the EPA encourages them to get the pamphlet laying out safe procedures and to follow them.
“Actually, the homeowner has some responsibility, too,” Sweeny said. “If you live in a pre-1978 house and you’re doing your own work, you have the added burden of trying to follow these rules because once you start doing this stuff, what’s the next thing they’re going to want — some type of certification that it was done this way when you go to sell your house.”
will revisit research the agency published in 2004 [4], which concluded that the process of hydraulic fracturing [5] did not pose a threat to drinking water. The 2004 report has been widely criticized, in part because the agency didn't conduct any water tests in reaching that conclusion.
The American Petroleum Institute released a statement saying it expects the study "to confirm what 60 years of experience and investigation have already demonstrated: that hydraulic fracturing is a safe and well understood technology for producing oil and natural gas."
the agency said it will spend nearly $2 million on the research this year and is asking for more money for next year. It promised a transparent, peer-reviewed process that includes stakeholder input. The EPA is seeking input from its Science Advisory Board on exactly how the study should proceed.
Click on the following for more details: EPA Launches National Study of Hydraulic Fracturing - ProPublica
NDK Crystal must disclose within 10 days to the Illinois attorney general’s office and the Boone County state’s attorney’s office what harmful chemicals may have polluted the water, soil and air after a Dec. 7 explosion at its Belvidere plant.
company also has 60 days to provide a corrective action plan, hazard and operability study and supply a “root cause analysis” of what caused the disaster.
Click on the following for more details: NDK must disclose possible pollutants within 10 days - Rockford, IL - Rockford Register Star
Below are photocopies of the court complaint against NDK. The two count indictment claimed “Substantial Endangerment to the Environment”(page1) and “Air Pollution”(page 5). Quartz particles and caustic soda are named in the complaint. Page 4 describes the injunction which was sought.
Click on the photocopies to enlarge:
The MIG/DeWane landfill is located in Boone County approximately one-quarter mile east of the City of Belvidere and one-half mile north of U.S. Business Route 20.
Between 1969 and 1988, the 47-acre landfill received general refuse and industrial wastes including paint sludge, volatile organic chemicals, asbestos and liquids containing heavy metals. The site was not properly closed and capped, resulting in a 5 to 10-acre depression in the middle of the landfill. This depression collected water, which drained into the landfill, resulting in over one hundred leachate seeps.
In 1989 and 1990, the Illinois EPA and U.S Environmental Protection Agency (U.S EPA), in two separate actions, removed approximately 155,000 gallons of leachate. * In 1991, parties responding to a U.S. EPA and Illinois EPA Administrative Order on Consent conducted a number of interim actions including the installation of an interim cap over the landfill. The landfill was placed on the National Priorities List (sometimes called the Superfund List) in 1990.
In April 1999, elevated levels of landfill gas were detected in the soil and in a few homes in Wycliffe Estates directly west of the landfill. The parties responding to the 1991 Administrative Order on Consent installed an active landfill-gas interception system along the western boundary of the landfill. The system significantly reduced landfill gas within a month. No landfill gas has been detected in the subdivision during the past six years.
*Leachate is water that has passed through landfill waste and picked up contaminants present in the waste.
On January 4, 2006, the State of Illinois lodged a proposed consent decree in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District in Illinois regarding the MIG/DeWane Landfill in Belvidere.
Without admitting liability, the defendants have agreed:
The defendants are BFI Waste Systems of North America, Inc. , five past and present owners and 88 former customers of the landfill including municipalities and manufacturers.
Yes. The public may send written comments on the proposed consent decree to Gerald T. Karr, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Illinois Attorney General, Environmental Bureau, 188 West Randolph Street, 20th Floor, Chicago, Illinois 60601. Comments must be postmarked by February 21, 2006 and should refer to The State of Illinois v. BFI Waste Systems of North America, Inc. , et. al.
The proposed consent decree may be viewed at (1) the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Illinois EPA) headquarters in Springfield, Illinois (2) the Ida Public Library in Belvidere or (3) the Illinois EPA website. The locations of these sites are listed on the bottom of page two.
During 2006, the defendants will conduct a predesign investigation to collect information needed to design the remedy designated in the 2000 ROD. This information will include an evaluation of present landfill, leachate, landfill gas and groundwater conditions. Actual construction of the remedy probably will not begin until 2007.
The pipes and wells are an aboveground landfill-gas extraction system. The main extraction system is buried to the east, closer to the landfill. As a precautionary measure, the aboveground system will remain in place to ensure protection against landfill gas moving into the Wycliffe Estates Subdivision. The 2000 ROD requires that a fence be constructed around the landfill and the soil borrow pit area.
Gerald T. Karr, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Environmental Bureau, Office of the Illinois Attorney General, 188 West Randolph Street, 20th Floor, Chicago, Illinois 60601.
Stan Black
Community Relations Coord.
Illinois EPA
1021 N. Grand Ave. E.
Box 19276
Springfield, Illinois 62794-9276
Phone: 217-785-1427
Rick Lanham
Project Manager
Illinois EPA
1021 N. Grand Ave. E.
Box 19276
Springfield, Illinois 62794-9276
Phone: 217-782-9881
The proposed consent decree and other project documents are available at the project repository located at the Ida Public Library, 320 North State St. , Belvidere, IL 61008.
This file contains all the documents that are the basis for Illinois EPA and U.S. EPA decisions for this project. It is located at the Illinois EPA headquarters in Springfield, Illinois. Call 217/782-9878 for more information.
The 2000 Record of Decision (ROD) for the MIG/DeWane Landfill documents the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Illinois EPA) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) decision on the final remedy for this site. The agencies made this decision after carefully considering public comments received during a public comment period held from June 11, 1999 to August 27, 1999. The Illinois EPA signed the ROD on March 30, 2000 and the U.S. EPA signed a letter of concurrence on March 31, 2000. THE ROD includes the following requirements:
As garbage decays in a landfill, it generates methane gas. The ROD requires that up to 15 additional passive gas vents be installed within the interior of the landfill to supplement the existing landfill-gas interception system installed in 1999. These vents can be upgraded to an active system if necessary. The active landfill-gas extraction system will be enhanced if necessary.
A multi-component landfill cap and cover system will be constructed and maintained to meet required landfill standards. The purpose of the cap is to minimize the infiltration of rain or other precipitation into the landfill, thus reducing the generation of leachate* and landfill gases and the movement of contaminants into groundwater, soil and air. The cap will cover the entire landfill. The landfill vegetative cover will be maintained to the maximum extent possible before, during and after construction. Unless the Illinois EPA approves alternate layers, the landfill cover/cap from top to bottom will consist of:
* Leachate is water that has passed through landfill waste and picked up contaminants present in the waste.
A runoff diversion and drainage system will be constructed so that the cap is not eroded. This system will include a drainage ditch around the toe of the landfill and a storm water retention pond.
All ponded water and leachate plus a minimum of two feet of sediments will be removed from the leachate surface impoundment. The liquids will be treated and disposed of in an approved manner, and the sediment will be disposed of on-site or in an otherwise approved manner. The empty surface impoundment will then be filled with clean soil. A leachate collection and management system will be installed to replace the leachate surface impoundment.
The chosen remedy for groundwater treatment is monitored natural attenuation. Natural attenuation occurs when any of several natural processes takes place in the soil or groundwater to reduce the mass, toxicity, mobility, volume or concentration of contaminants. One example of natural attenuation is when naturally occurring microbes in the soil or groundwater break down contaminants into harmless components. Another example is when contaminants become adsorbed (attached) to soil particles, thus preventing the contaminants from moving into the groundwater. Natural attenuation was chosen for several reasons including:
A restriction will be placed on the landfill and the adjacent soil borrow pit area and will be recorded with the Boone County Recorder of Deeds. This restriction will prohibit the following activities on the landfill and soil borrow pit area: construction of buildings, on-site groundwater use, drilling, excavation and any other soil intrusive activities.
The ROD requires an Operation and Maintenance Plan that will cover all aspects of the remedial action including the landfill cap, landfill gas monitoring and groundwater monitoring. The plan must be approved by the Illinois EPA.
