End of lawsuit means money for Pottstown

POTTSTOWN — Waste Management and the Pottstown Borough Authority have inked a 31-year contract for the treatment of the Pottstown Landfill's leachate that will provide $500,000 to borough coffers over the next five years.
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The contract puts an end to a $10 million lawsuit Waste Management filed against Pottstown in 2006 over the termination of the previous 10-year agreement for leachate treatment.Additionally, the 17-page agreement requires that the amount of leachate the landfill sends to the Pottstown Wastewater Treatment Plan continues to decrease over time, and applies additional fees if it does not."We're pleased we have been able to reach an agreement for treatment of wastewater in cooperation with both the borough and the authority," said Waste Management spokeswoman Patty Barthel."We believe it will benefit all parties, the Pottstown community and the environment," Barthel said.The contract was unanimously approved by the Borough Authority at its Aug. 19 board meeting, but it has not yet been the subject of a vote by Borough Council. Council may vote on the contract on Sept. 8, although the meeting agenda has not yet been made public.The agreement, which runs until 2036, is retroactive to 2006, which is the year the previous agreement governing leachate treatment was terminated, an event which was quickly followed by the $10 million lawsuit.Leachate is the name given to water, either rain or groundwater, which percolates through the rotting trash buried in the landfill, picking up a miasma of contaminants along the way, and drains out of the bottom through a drainage system.The leachate is treated by a facility at the landfill, which is located in West Pottsgrove, and is then pumped into a sewer pipe that runs down Manatawny Street.In the past, concerns had been raised about the health and liability dangers of the borough accepting flow which had the potential of containing tritium, a radioactive substance, or other potentially dangerous substances.Those concerns were often raised by Borough Councilman Stephen Toroney, who served on the state-sponsored Landfill Closure Committee, Pennsylvania's first, which set new parameters for the closure of the landfill.Toroney said he is generally pleased with the agreement."We tried to bring it in line with what the closure committee wanted to do and I was mainly concerned with making sure the leachate was gradually scaled back and that the landfill was billed accurately," Toroney said.According to the contract, a copy of which was obtained by The Mercury, Waste Management must reduce its leachate flow by 2 percent each year.A chart contained in the contract limits the 2008 capacity to 21.1 million gallons and requires a 432,200-gallon reduction in flow.By the end of the contract, the landfill's leachate flow is to have dwindled to 12 million gallons.Under the agreement, Waste Management must pay $1 for each 1,000 gallons of leachate over the annual limit that it sends to the sewer plant.The contract also sets the rates Waste Management will pay for leachate treatment, saying it will be treated like other industrial users; although, it caps those rates for three years.As an industrial user, the landfill will also be subject to the surcharges charged to companies whose effluent contains high levels of chemicals. This is a departure from the previous arrangement in which the landfill paid nominal fees, or none at all, in exchange for providing free recycling services to the borough as well as waiving the tipping fee for the borough's trash, something which suppressed the cost of trash collection in Pottstown for years.With the Department of Environmental Protection's closure of the landfill in 2005, the company was no longer able to provide that benefit to the borough.The $500,000 benefit to the borough will come in two phases. According to the contract, the first $250,000 phase is payable on or after Aug. 1 and the second will come Aug. 1, 2013.It has not yet been announced what Pottstown will do with the first $250,000 payment.Other items in the contract include a clause requiring Waste Management to clean, maintain and possibly replace a portion of the 8-inch sewer line under Manatawny Street.

Pottstown Mercury - 08/28/08 - http://www.zwire.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=20095129&BRD=1674&PAG=461&dept_id=635482&rfi=8