Fines Hit Roadblock in N.H.

The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (DES) has banned the use of fines generated at mixed C&D recycling operations as use for alternative daily cover (ADC) in municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills.

C&D recyclers in the state were informed of the surprise move in a certified letter from Anthony P. Giunta, director of DES’ Waste Management Div., who issued the letter on July 16, made the ban effective on July 26, and then reportedly went on vacation for two weeks. According to the letter, the department banned the “co-disposal of ‘gypsum-containing’ fines with MSW . . . because the Department believes that there is a link between these fines placed with MSW and the production of high amounts of hydrogen sulfide, mercaptans, and other reduced sulfur compounds.”

Waste industry observers in the state say the action took place because the state’s largest landfill, Waste Management’s Turnkey operation in Rochester, N.H., was experiencing odor problems. Besides using C&D fines as ADC, the facility also takes in other types of waste, such as municipal sludge.

The DES has been asked by the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA), Lisle, Ill., and others for the scientific data upon which it has based its decision. The DES has not yet produced the information, according to CMRA executive director William Turley.

The CMRA, which is currently creating a database on the composition of C&D fines from recycling operations across the country, is also asking if the DES can make such a unilateral and economically damaging action to the state’s C&D recyclers without at least some type of promulgation or public hearing. “We are investigating the mechanism they must follow in issuing such rules,” says Turley.

No one doubts the DES’ ability to create such a rule. But the main issues, says Turley, is that there is no proof that the fines were causing an odor problem and there may not be any science behind the decision, with the fines serving as a convenient scapegoat. “Of course, under the right conditions gypsum can create hydrogen sulfide gas, but you have to make those right conditions,” says Turley. “Dozens of landfills across the U.S. use C&D fines as ADC with no odor problem. The trick is to use them properly, and to that end the CMRA is going to develop a best management practices guideline for using C&D fines.”