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6 minutes ago, soccermom said:

Well, you brought up what sets off the Geiger counter. I also remember people discussing folded prions in the old landfill thread.

Well, I think that was you discussing the prions :lol:, I don't know much about that.

The only thing I have ever seen set off the Geiger counter is waste from a chemo patient, and we once had a driver who set off the alarm every time he came in one day. When that happens, they have to drop their can and DHEC comes and scans it by hand. That's how we've pinpointed one diaper in a 20 ton load. Anyway, they never got a hit on that particular driver's can. Out of curiosity, they waved the wand over the driver, and he set it off. Turns out his uniforms had been washed with some of the clothing from a nursing home and was tripping the alarm, that's how sensitive they are

 

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7 minutes ago, landfillguy said:

Well, I think that was you discussing the prions :lol:, I don't know much about that.

The only thing I have ever seen set off the Geiger counter is waste from a chemo patient, and we once had a driver who set off the alarm every time he came in one day. When that happens, they have to drop their can and DHEC comes and scans it by hand. That's how we've pinpointed one diaper in a 20 ton load. Anyway, they never got a hit on that particular driver's can. Out of curiosity, they waved the wand over the driver, and he set it off. Turns out his uniforms had been washed with some of the clothing from a nursing home and was tripping the alarm, that's how sensitive they are

 

No, I wasn't the person who brought up prions. There were 2 other people talking about it before I made a comment.

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5 minutes ago, hipower said:

Makes me wonder if they aren't missing an opportunity to do a joint venture or even a stand alone landfill which accepts other materials on a for profit basis?

We looked at that, dedicating a cell to nothing but fly ash. The profit would have been less than half of the MSW rate for a more desirable material, but even at that cost the power plants came out cheaper building their own cells. You can't really mix it with sludge during the lower stages of a cell because, like fedup said, it makes an impermeable barrier. It turns to concrete and won't let leachate go to the bottom of the landfill, it pushes it out the sides. I know of one landfill in particular that had to go back with a rock hammer on a trackhoe just to bust through it to relieve the pressure. It would be good on a cap, but caps are a short term project once every few years, and fly ash is constant

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4 hours ago, soccermom said:

It seems many things that are expensive to dispose of as waste suddenly find new homes. But how much testing is done before hand to determine the long term implications? I challenge that the new homes usually comes from well funded lobbying.

 My experience with flyash. 

 Small coal operator in your back yard had a old small reclaimed strip mine. They had buried trees and stumps in it. Polluted a small stream. Nothing drastic. Dep said dig out the wood and place flyash in its place. I done the work.

2nd experience was a large DEP run experiment. Also in your backyard. They used tons and tons of flyash. I did not work on that job. I was one of three residents that watched over the project at the request of the DEP.

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14 minutes ago, fedup said:

 My experience with flyash. 

 Small coal operator in your back yard had a old small reclaimed strip mine. They had buried trees and stumps in it. Polluted a small stream. Nothing drastic. Dep said dig out the wood and place flyash in its place. I done the work.

2nd experience was a large DEP run experiment. Also in your backyard. They used tons and tons of flyash. I did not work on that job. I was one of three residents that watched over the project at the request of the DEP.

My first job as a superintendent was building cooling ponds for the discharge of the new scrubbers at a coal plant in NC. 5 ponds, 8 acres each, built entirely from fly ash. After the ponds were constructed, we laid pipe 8-15 feet deep in that ash. There were days I went home looking like an extra from Amos and Andy. This was in 2002. I wonder what has been discovered in fly ash since then that makes it such an ecological nightmare. My body may be riddled with cancer one day, but I've seen things come in here that were much more concerning than fly ash. This is just my opinion, but I think that whole movement was a "feel good" move that will cost the taxpayers billions of dollars 

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2 minutes ago, landfillguy said:

My first job as a superintendent was building cooling ponds for the discharge of the new scrubbers at a coal plant in NC. 5 ponds, 8 acres each, built entirely from fly ash. After the ponds were constructed, we laid pipe 8-15 feet deep in that ash. There were days I went home looking like an extra from Amos and Andy. This was in 2002. I wonder what has been discovered in fly ash since then that makes it such an ecological nightmare. My body may be riddled with cancer one day, but I've seen things come in here that were much more concerning than fly ash. This is just my opinion, but I think that whole movement was a "feel good" move that will cost the taxpayers billions of dollars 

I hated working with the stuff. It's worse than baby power.

 The strip job I worked kept me covered in the stuff and who knows how much I sucked in. 

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4 minutes ago, fedup said:

I hated working with the stuff. It's worse than baby power.

 The strip job I worked kept me covered in the stuff and who knows how much I sucked in. 

Took about 6 q-tips to clean my ears and nose at the end of the day.

I've also worked at a couple of gold mines. If you want to hear about some scary chemicals in industry, do a little reading about how gold ore is extracted from dirt. Where is the public outcry for those companies to clean up their slurry piles? 

I think the power plants are just an easy target 

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Just now, landfillguy said:

Took about 6 q-tips to clean my ears and nose at the end of the day.

I've also worked at a couple of gold mines. If you want to hear about some scary chemicals in industry, do a little reading about how gold ore is extracted from dirt. Where is the public outcry for those companies to clean up their slurry piles? 

I think the power plants are just an easy target 

 YEPPER on the gold extraction. But wedding rings are a needed thing. 

 Think about the BS involved in the making of solar panels.

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3 minutes ago, fedup said:

 YEPPER on the gold extraction. But wedding rings are a needed thing. 

 Think about the BS involved in the making of solar panels.

Yeah, I wonder where they're gonna bury those things. They ain't coming here

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Head to any of the coal burning power plants around the area and look at the fly ash "mountains" built around them. Fly ash has been used in cement, cement block, flow fill, and various other things for many years.

As far as the radioactivity in fly ash. You have been exposed to more radiation to various things in your home and things you eat on a daily basis. Have stone or marble counter tops or tile in your home? Guess what your're living with a radioactive source everyday.....

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1 hour ago, NikonSniper said:

Head to any of the coal burning power plants around the area and look at the fly ash "mountains" built around them. Fly ash has been used in cement, cement block, flow fill, and various other things for many years.

As far as the radioactivity in fly ash. You have been exposed to more radiation to various things in your home and things you eat on a daily basis. Have stone or marble counter tops or tile in your home? Guess what your're living with a radioactive source everyday.....

I didn't post a comment about fly ash being used in building material to speak of radioactivity. I posted it to ponder if fly ash used as a substitute for cement makes concrete less durable.

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3 hours ago, soccermom said:

I didn't post a comment about fly ash being used in building material to speak of radioactivity. I posted it to ponder if fly ash used as a substitute for cement makes concrete less durable.

http://www.greenbuildermedia.com/buildingscience/the-truth-about-fly-ash

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298710736_Utilization_of_fly_ash_waste_as_construction_material

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5 minutes ago, NikonSniper said:

Yes, it's a means for companies to get rid of their coal by-product, but is it beneficial to consumers if it doesn't last as long as cement? 

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4 minutes ago, NikonSniper said:

The article talking about silica, alumina and iron oxide...

Note it then moves on to the advantages versus disadvantages. It most certainly is advantageous to the producers of fly ash, just like using sewage sludge on fields is advantageous for some...

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  • 4 weeks later...

From what I hear this story is not over. The last I heard DEP had another driller in taking samples. I wanted to post today because I actually met with one of our sludge producers this week for the first time at their facility, and I have a better understanding of where it comes from, how it is solidified, and why certain materials have to be used. This will be kind of a long and boring post, but for anyone wondering what sludge actually is I will try and explain it.

Wastewater treatment sludge is easy to visualize, it's just whatever settles to the bottom of a treatment pond, and it makes up about 40% of our sludge intake. The rest is classified as "industrial sludge", so in my mind it was coming from the back end of a plant as the sludge I see. I asked our hauler if he would give me a tour of the facility, because we have to work with each other on haul times so I'm not bombarded with more than I can handle in a short period of time. Sometimes this puts our hauler in a bind, so I wanted to see what he was up against. I was surprised to learn that his facility isn't producing the sludge, he is taking liquid waste from all kinds of industry, solidifying it, then sending it to the landfill. When I say liquid waste, I mean almost any liquid you can think of. Oil, ammonia, shampoo, milk, all different kinds of liquid chemicals. He said almost every manufacturing process produces liquid waste on some level. His facility receives these liquids and what can be recycled, like oil, is recycled. All other liquids are hauled in tankers, or in 50-100 gallon totes. These liquids are dumped into a "solidification pit", a concrete lined pit about 15ftx15ftx10ft deep. The next step is to add a binding agent, and this is where the dangers of sludge in a landfill begin. Sawdust is commonly used, and I love it, but the problem with using sawdust is it doesn't totally bind the liquid. If only sawdust was used, the trucks would leak from the facility all the way to the landfill, about 45 miles away, so other binding agents have to be added. One option is a cottony looking material that soaks up the liquids, and that works for me because the liquid is squeezed back out in the landfill by the weight of the equipment and the weight of the trash stacked on top of it. Picture it like a saturated sponge. The problem there is you still risk trucks leaking en route, so another agent they use is binding polymers, basically powders that lock the liquids. This is the stuff that makes sludge so hard to handle, so dangerous if it isn't mixed properly. The very thing that makes it safe to haul is what makes it dangerous in a landfill. It's not like a sponge, it doesn't release the water. It never dries and stabilizes, and if too much is placed in one area it makes an impervious layer that will trap other liquids either above or under that layer, creating those invisible underground ponds that I've described before.

This is why I want the story of Greentree to come out. If it is proven that sludge was responsible for that collapse, the waste industry needs to take a long look at what it is, and what it is doing to us. Liquid waste will always be generated, and it has to go somewhere. Modern landfills are the best option we have at this time, but the workers in those landfills have to be protected. When "wet waste" studies are done, they are done by engineers, and those results are shared with upper management. The field operators are not brought in to the discussion. Things that look good on paper don't necessarily translate to good practice in the field. One of my engineers came to me after one of those studies, excited to tell me they had proven that the "moisture retention capabilities" of the polymers were very high. To the people watching the bottom line, what that means is less leachate generation, less liquid at the bottom of the landfill that has to be hauled off and treated. An engineer doesn't think about what this waste that never dries does to the surfaces we work on every day, and how those initial savings in leachate generation turn into expense exponentially for years and years after the waste is dumped. You have to dig up bad areas and repair them, you have slides that if not repaired turn into exactly what happened at Greentree. You have odor issues because of gas migration, and lawsuits have been settled for millions of dollars with neighboring communities. The biggest issue of all is the instability it causes, and the dangerous conditions employees have to work in if it is not handled properly. There needs to be a national discussion about how this liquid waste can be safely disposed of. You can't dump free liquids in a landfill, so it will always have to be solidified in some fashion. I want the industry, regardless of the company you work for, to take a look at this issue and make common sense decisions that include input from the people that actually have to handle this material. It can't be fixed by a spreadsheet.

If the Greentree collapse doesn't get everyone's attention, then nothing will. If it is swept under the rug and disappears quietly, it will happen again

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On 10/20/2017 at 11:43 AM, LFG said:

From what I hear this story is not over. The last I heard DEP had another driller in taking samples. I wanted to post today because I actually met with one of our sludge producers this week for the first time at their facility, and I have a better understanding of where it comes from, how it is solidified, and why certain materials have to be used. This will be kind of a long and boring post, but for anyone wondering what sludge actually is I will try and explain it.

Wastewater treatment sludge is easy to visualize, it's just whatever settles to the bottom of a treatment pond, and it makes up about 40% of our sludge intake. The rest is classified as "industrial sludge", so in my mind it was coming from the back end of a plant as the sludge I see. I asked our hauler if he would give me a tour of the facility, because we have to work with each other on haul times so I'm not bombarded with more than I can handle in a short period of time. Sometimes this puts our hauler in a bind, so I wanted to see what he was up against. I was surprised to learn that his facility isn't producing the sludge, he is taking liquid waste from all kinds of industry, solidifying it, then sending it to the landfill. When I say liquid waste, I mean almost any liquid you can think of. Oil, ammonia, shampoo, milk, all different kinds of liquid chemicals. He said almost every manufacturing process produces liquid waste on some level. His facility receives these liquids and what can be recycled, like oil, is recycled. All other liquids are hauled in tankers, or in 50-100 gallon totes. These liquids are dumped into a "solidification pit", a concrete lined pit about 15ftx15ftx10ft deep. The next step is to add a binding agent, and this is where the dangers of sludge in a landfill begin. Sawdust is commonly used, and I love it, but the problem with using sawdust is it doesn't totally bind the liquid. If only sawdust was used, the trucks would leak from the facility all the way to the landfill, about 45 miles away, so other binding agents have to be added. One option is a cottony looking material that soaks up the liquids, and that works for me because the liquid is squeezed back out in the landfill by the weight of the equipment and the weight of the trash stacked on top of it. Picture it like a saturated sponge. The problem there is you still risk trucks leaking en route, so another agent they use is binding polymers, basically powders that lock the liquids. This is the stuff that makes sludge so hard to handle, so dangerous if it isn't mixed properly. The very thing that makes it safe to haul is what makes it dangerous in a landfill. It's not like a sponge, it doesn't release the water. It never dries and stabilizes, and if too much is placed in one area it makes an impervious layer that will trap other liquids either above or under that layer, creating those invisible underground ponds that I've described before.

This is why I want the story of Greentree to come out. If it is proven that sludge was responsible for that collapse, the waste industry needs to take a long look at what it is, and what it is doing to us. Liquid waste will always be generated, and it has to go somewhere. Modern landfills are the best option we have at this time, but the workers in those landfills have to be protected. When "wet waste" studies are done, they are done by engineers, and those results are shared with upper management. The field operators are not brought in to the discussion. Things that look good on paper don't necessarily translate to good practice in the field. One of my engineers came to me after one of those studies, excited to tell me they had proven that the "moisture retention capabilities" of the polymers were very high. To the people watching the bottom line, what that means is less leachate generation, less liquid at the bottom of the landfill that has to be hauled off and treated. An engineer doesn't think about what this waste that never dries does to the surfaces we work on every day, and how those initial savings in leachate generation turn into expense exponentially for years and years after the waste is dumped. You have to dig up bad areas and repair them, you have slides that if not repaired turn into exactly what happened at Greentree. You have odor issues because of gas migration, and lawsuits have been settled for millions of dollars with neighboring communities. The biggest issue of all is the instability it causes, and the dangerous conditions employees have to work in if it is not handled properly. There needs to be a national discussion about how this liquid waste can be safely disposed of. You can't dump free liquids in a landfill, so it will always have to be solidified in some fashion. I want the industry, regardless of the company you work for, to take a look at this issue and make common sense decisions that include input from the people that actually have to handle this material. It can't be fixed by a spreadsheet.

If the Greentree collapse doesn't get everyone's attention, then nothing will. If it is swept under the rug and disappears quietly, it will happen again

I so agree with you. I don't want anyone to forget what happened or stop asking questions.

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  • 3 weeks later...

DEP: Movement reported at Greentree Landfill

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The Department of Environment Protection said Monday that there was movement at Greentree Landfill again. (WJAC)

KERSEY – There has been more movement at the site of a deadly landfill landslide in Elk County.

The Department of Environment Protection said Monday that there was movement at Advanced Disposal's Greentree Landfill again.

 

 

A spokesperson for DEP said it happened last week and Greentree workers notified DEP of the movement.

The landfill reportedly ceased operations for the day and has temporarily ceased relocating waste from February's landslide.

The latest movement comes more than nine months after a deadly landslide killed longtime employee William Pierce.

The investigation from February's landslide is ongoing.                                                                                                                                                                                                        SEE TWEETS ; http://wjactv.com/news/local/dep-movement-reported-at-greentree-landfill

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