NEWBURYPORT — New Ventures, the company that owns the embattled Crow Lane Landfill, is set to ask the City Council Monday to allow more material to be dumped at the site as part of efforts to cap the landfill this year.
"New Ventures is looking to bring more volume into the landfill," said Brian Derrivan, the Ward 5 city councilor.
Under the 2002 Host Community Agreement, "they need to come to the City Council and ask for the council to look to allow them to bring in more volume," Derrivan said.
The landfill, which over the past five years has risen to the size of an impressive hill off Low Street, has been the center of a battle involving neighbors, state officials and the city. Disgusting smells and the company's failure to stick to its operating agreement have led to cease-and-desist orders and threats by the state to take over the capping operation at New Ventures' expense.
In a letter to the council, New Ventures' attorney Richard Nylen said the company is requesting an audience with the council at its 7:30 p.m. meeting Monday. It says the appearance is "to take the steps necessary to cap the landfill this calendar year."
Refuse at the site must reach a specified capacity before a sealing membrane can be placed and other capping operations can be carried out. Increasing the incoming volume of waste would speed reaching that target.
Derrivan, who said he couldn't provide too many details because the city is in negotiations regarding the site, said the request from New Ventures comes at a time when the company also is negotiating with the state's attorney general and Department of Environmental Protection to develop a plan for capping the landfill.
City officials are not involved in those negotiations, and a deal between the company and the two state agencies — if one has been struck — is not yet public information.
Derrivan, whose ward includes the landfill, said the city is not privy to much of what is going on at that level. But city officials, including Mayor John Moak, have said an agreement between the parties is due at any time.
In the end, though, Derrivan said whatever the two state groups decide with New Ventures, the city has the last say on volume amount and also "we have the luxury, if need be, to issue a cease and desist order.
"But we don't want to go there if we don't have to," Derrivan said.
Derrivan said New Ventures is likely coming to the city before signing a deal with the state.
"New Ventures doesn't want to sign an agreement with state unless there are assurances from the city," he said.
Amy Breton, a spokeswoman from the attorney general's office, would not comment about negotiations.
For the past half decade or so, the Crow Lane Landfill has proved a contentious issue in Newburyport, largely because of the sulfurous smells of rotten eggs and burnt matches that often disrupt the lives of neighbors. The smell is caused by rotting gypsum boards dumped on the site. Residents who live nearby complain of headaches, runny noses, sore throats and many ruined days of potential outdoor recreation.
The city and state have fought to remedy the smells through tighter regulation but continually run into problems with New Ventures and its owner, William Thibeault, who refuses to speak to The Daily News about the problems at the site.
Throughout the years, the city has fined Thibeault thousands of dollars for failures to abide by the rules at the landfill, including a recent incident in which officials suspect New Ventures purposely shut down a flare that burns off the most offensive of the smells.
Derrivan said the most recent request is a move in the direction of the city's goal, which is to cap the landfill.
"It is one of three steps of trying to get some agreements signed and the capping continued and finished, and that is the ultimate goal," he said.
"But there is definitely more to discuss."
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