Anonymous call helps landfill

YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO, UNITED STATES, March 31, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- On March 29, 2022, the Ohio EPA sent Lafarge’s Lordstown Landfill a warning letter for receiving five loads, over 38 tons, of regulated asbestos-containing material (RACM) from a demolition site in Struthers, Ohio. The Lordstown Landfill’s existing air permits expressly prohibit accepting asbestos wastes.

An anonymous tip to Lafarge informed them of five truckloads of asbestos from a demolition project were sent to their Lordstown, Ohio landfill. But the asbestos loads were already disposed at the landfill. The Ohio EPA’s warning letter states the Lordstown landfill watered the loads in an attempt to reduce the hazardous dust. The material was then buried at the landfill. Many landfills maintain contingency plans for such scenarios using third party hazardous waste experts to manage hazardous or biohazardous waste and dispose of it properly.

It is unknown whether the landfill workers, neighbors or customers were exposed to any dust from the five truckloads of asbestos waste. The Lordstown Landfill accepts more than 10,000 truckloads of waste a year.

According the Asbestos Disease Awareness organization (ADAO), there were more than 40,000 asbestos-related worker deaths in 2019 alone, the year for which the latest data is publicly available. That equates to roughly one asbestos-related death every 12 minutes. According to multiple sources, over 12,000 Ohioans died from asbestos related diseases between 1999 and 2017.

Besides asbestos, landfill generated dust plumes may contain fiberglass, silica, mold spores, mercury, lead, cadmium, radioactive elements and household hazardous wastes. Nearly 50% of the homes in the US contain asbestos. Cleveland has more than 100,000 homes which contain asbestos while New York City has 1.3 million. The average building being demolished is 50 years older than the Environmental Protection Agency which was created by President Nixon in 1970.

Mark Schmidt, who has over 35 years experience in the waste industry, worked for both the Ohio EPA and Lafarge. Mr. Schmidt filed a notarized, 16-page verified complaint with the Ohio EPA in June 2021 against Lafarge's Lordstown Landfill. The complaint alleged numerous detailed concerns regarding violations of Ohio's waste regulations .

The Ohio EPA’s follow-up complaint investigation resulted in three enforcement letters in October 2021. The lengthy Notices of Violation included 14 different citations for accepting illegal pulverized waste, for poor landfill operations, for the lack of dust control and for inadequate surface water controls. The Agency’s investigation has not been concluded at the time of this article. Four more Ohio EPA violation letters have since been sent to Lafarge between December 2021, and March 15, 2022.

“This episode was somewhat curtailed by an anonymous tip. But how many loads of unacceptable wastes going to the landfill never get a tip?” questioned Mr. Schmidt.

Lafarge is the parent company of the Lordstown Landfill and is the world’s largest cement producer. Lafarge operates in more than 70 countries including Russia and China. News outlets have reported allegations that Lafarge created environmental problems around the globe. The company has been indicted in France for crimes against humanity for cooperating with ISIS at their Syrian cement operation. CitizensAgainstLordstownLandfill.org also provides news links to controversial Lafarge sites in New York, Ontario, Nova Scotia, the U.K., Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Syria and other locations.

Besides the landfill’s toxic gases, the exposure of workers and neighbors to asbestos is one of the paramount concerns of the environmental group citizensagainstlordstownlandfill.org.

Elijah Zander
Citizens Against Lordstown Landfill
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