NEWBURYPORT — Mayor Donna Holaday will meet with the state's Department of Environmental Protection this week to discuss the Crow Lane landfill capping following reports of worsening odor outbreaks from neighbors and an explosion caused by the methane in the flare.
The meeting comes following a series of conversations between the mayor and DEP, and site visits to the landfill by the mayor, DEP officials and Ward 5 Councilor Brian Derrivan, who represents the area surrounding Crow Lane.
"I spent many hours this weekend in conversations with DEP regarding the current status of the landfill," Holaday wrote in an e-mail chain to residents, state and city officials and the media.
The state confirmed very high readings of hydrogen sulfide — a gas that has a rotten-egg-like smell — from the outflow pipe near the haul road, Holaday wrote in an e-mail Saturday. "I was able to get DEP to work with New Ventures to come out today to place a soil cover over this pipe, but when I arrived on site this evening with Councilor Derrivan it was clear this was not the only fix needed. It is perplexing when I reviewed the data logs that perimeter readings are showing only .02-.04 readings when the odors and complaints continue to be elevated. I am concerned about the anticipated weather patterns and the impact this will have and will continue to monitor your e-mails as well as make site visits."
Derrivan also met with DEP officials on Friday, at the site, to try to determine where the odors are coming from.
For about three weeks, odors of hydrogen sulfide have grown worse, plaguing neighbors and causing health problems. For more than five years, the neighbors have dealt with these odors, which cause nausea, headaches, watery eyes and sinus infections, among other ailments.
"Every morning I leave for work and it stinks, I get home 12 hours later and it stinks," abutter Deb Woodbury wrote last week to the e-mail chain. "I wake up in the night and it stinks and then the night is sleepless. Do you really think that after I work all day that I deserve to come home to a stench that would make the faint of heart vomit? Do you think my 12-year-old son deserves to live like this? Lastly do you think that my husband has not been fair and patient waiting for wrongs to be righted and for this nasty project, forced on us by the state, to be completed? This is like Groundhog Day, only real life."
Derrivan said the odors are getting worse.
"Some of the odors the last few days are just unbelievable," Derrivan said, "This is a consistent, nauseating smell." He added that he left the landfill Friday after spending 15 minutes there and had a "pounding headache."
Surveying the landfill, Derrivan said it's evident there are problems near the haul road and berm, the parts of the landfill that won't be covered with a protective layer until the capping is finished.
He wondered why the state had yet to take action as the problem is clear.
"Why isn't anything getting done?" he asked. New Ventures has stopped activities at the site for the season. Shaw Engineering, hired by the state, is on site each day in order to monitor the site and address any odor outbreaks.
Derrivan wondered why the situation wasn't addressed earlier.
"Here we are, three or four weeks later and they're not addressing them and that's a concern," Derrivan said. "I can't even imagine what some of these residents are going through right now. It's absolutely ridiculous."
Derrivan met with a DEP official Friday and said the odors were determined to be coming from the overflow pipe that had been installed and left uncapped in the basin, in particular.
"After many phone calls from the mayor and me, New Ventures has been directed by the DEP to cover and seal the pipe Saturday morning," he wrote in an e-mail Friday afternoon.
Ed Coletta, a spokesman for DEP, said the state agency has had workers at the site over the last several days to work with Shaw and try to find a source for the latest round of odors. Shaw has been tracking the odors and reporting them, he said.
The breakouts are coming from the area that is not covered, he said. The state is working to get New Ventures to come to the site and address the problems, Coletta said.
"We're unhappy that this is happening; obviously we want to do what we can to find these types of breakouts," Coletta said. "Unfortunately, the owner is denying that there is a problem at this point."
DEP northeast regional director Richard Chalpin was not available for comment Friday.
The odors came after a blow-back explosion of the methane in the flare caused pictures to fall from the walls in some homes and frightened neighbors.
Derrivan likened the situation last weekend to starting a gas grill. The methane was coming out while the flare wasn't starting, he said, and once it did, it blew back.
"From what I understand, this was not the first time residents had heard it," Derrivan said. It raises questions about the flare, he said, and who is operating it.
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