5 Cleanup Technologies for Landfill Toxins

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5 Cleanup Technologies for Landfill Toxins

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun testing five technologies for cleanup at a federal Superfund site in Rensselaer County, where more than 46,000 tons of toxins were dumped over 60 years ago.

1.   In-situ Chemical Oxidation (ISCO)

2.   Enhanced In-situ Bioremediation (EISB)

3.   Bioventing

4.  Soil Vapor Extraction (SVE)

5.  Light Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid (LNAPL) Extractability

That amounts to twice the number of toxins dumped in Love Canal—the site of the worst environmental disaster involving chemical wastes in US history. An abandoned canal became a dumping ground for nearly 22,000 tons of chemical waste (including polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxin and pesticides) produced by the Hooker Chemicals and Plastics Corporation in the 1940s and ’50s. Over the next three decades, it attracted national attention for the serious health problems to Love Canal neighborhood residents, caused by years of exposure to toxic soil and groundwater.

In Rensselaer County, between 1952 and 1968, more than 46,000 tons of industrial hazardous wastes, carcinogens, and PCBs (polychlorinated byphenyls), were carelessly dumped into an area that was once a lagoon on Mead Road in the Town of Nassau formerly owned by resident Dewey Loeffel. Several industries, including the General Electric Company (GE), Bendix Corporation, and Schenectady Chemicals, Inc. were responsible for the waste, which includes chlorinated solvents, waste oils, PCBs, acids and bases and other scrap materials. 

Behind a fence, the Dewey Loeffel Landfill Superfund site and water treatment facility sit in the middle of Mead Road, surrounded by homes on either end of this rural dirt, gravel road. Crossing the road from the site, Little Thunder Brook remains contaminated with PCBs—runoff from years of toxic dumping.

Today, concerns remain over the condition of bedrock underneath the former dump site, which state officials relied on to contain remaining toxins when a cap and slurry wall were installed during the 1980s without a landfill liner to slow the leakage of contaminants. "The site is still leaking, that's clear," said Nassau Town Supervisor David Fleming. "A cap and a liner do nothing when you key it into fractured bedrock. We need to stop the migration of toxins from the site and simultaneously address the cleanup technologies."

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