Gordy, Just Show Us the Data

The Sunday (June 7th) edition of the local paper featured a guest appearance by Geneva City Director of Public Works, Gordy Eddington, presumably prompted by all the talk around town about leachate. However, Eddington’s piece was really not about leachate at all, but, rather, the reported performance of the City’s wastewater treatment plant. The City’s plant and our water, he says, are in compliance with various regulatory requirements.

While that’s an important subject, it’s not what everyone has been talking about. Sure, we operate a treatment system that discharges effluent in accordance with our operating permits. But Eddington’s article leaves the impression he is answering the question, “Does leachate exceed the City’s regulatory permit requirements?” That’s not a question anyone has been asking.

It seems that the public has taken it for granted that the City plant is doing its job, that its job is only compliance, and not a more prudential approach to sustainability. However, as this EPA primer for municipal wastewater treatment systems states: “Progress on abating pollution has barely kept ahead of population growth, changes in industrial processes, technological developments, changes in land use, business innovations, and several other factors….[that] can greatly alter the amount and complexity of industrial wastes and challenge traditional treatment technology.” (click here to read it yourself)

This gets the crux of the question that Councilor Cosentino asked at the most recent Council meeting: “What’s in it [the leachate]?” The real question, if we may expand on Cosentino’s blunt inquiry, is what is the complete chemical composition of the leachate and what chemicals may be going untreated, or minimally treated, into our lake—the source of our drinking water. It may be the case that the ‘complexity’ of the waste, as the EPA points out, is far beyond our system’s capacity and we may not realize that we’ve failed to abate significant pollutants from our drinking water.

Unfortunately, Council discussion has not brought about much clarity about the leachate treatment issue. According to the Mayor, Council will convene a special work session in the coming weeks to discuss the issue in more detail, but first he asked each Councilor to submit questions that s/he would like answered about the topic. We hope that Council is moving toward a decision based on those gathered facts, but the first order of business might be getting a clear statement of what is really being asked of the City Council.

Last month, Council was considering a resolution to authorize the City Manager to renegotiate a contract with Casella. Council had a preexisting agreement with Casella to potentially stop the practice of trucking in the leachate in favor of the more controlled and, in the long run, less expensive, dump-to-plant pipeline for delivery. However, that agreement required Casella to foot the bill for the pipeline. That’s why Casella was seeking to have Ontario County do the financing through the creation of a new municipal sewer district.

But Ontario County Supervisors were (rightly) concerned about incurring almost $10 million of debt simply to facilitate Casella’s compliance with a requirement to treat the leachate. Instead, the County desired to create a standard residential-commercial sewer district where Casella would be just one of many ‘tie ins’ along the route between the landfill and the City line. To do this, the existing City-Casella agreement needed to be modified to both: (a) allow a third party (the County) to finance the construction of the line; and (b) abandon the commitment to a ‘dedicated’ flow system in favor of a standard sewer line.

In the course of those discussions members of the public, and Councilors, began to wonder why we have to take any leachate via any transportation method, and suddenly the contract resurfaced. It showed that not only had the former City Manager negotiated the leachate line, but he had also obligated the City to receive leachate from Casella for at least 10 years.

Although we recommended in our post on the issue, that Council table the resolution, it quickly became clear during the Council meeting that there was no good argument for agreeing to the contract modification. Not one. But Council agreed to table the motion pending “more information.” In an upcoming post, we would like to attempt to sort out what questions are actually before Council and how those questions about what to do should shape the public understanding of what we should know.

We don’t fault Eddington for publishing his piece, presumably with the OK from Matt Horn, the City Manager. It is perfectly appropriate for public officials to reassure citizens about such matters—if reassurance is warranted. Problem is, reassurance given regarding one aspect can easily lead folks to believe that all is well, everywhere, now and for the future. That is not necessarily the case.

There is lots more work to be done on leachate. In the mean time, Eddington should post all the data he has on the composition of the leachate on the City’s website, and let the sun shine in on it.