Commissioners say EPA had 'no urgency' - Officials find fault with agency's reaction to landfill fire reports
The Times-Reporter
EAST SPARTA - Tuscarawas County commissioners weren’t surprised Monday after reading an Akron Beacon Journal article detailing internal messages between the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency’s Columbus and Twinsburg offices in regard to happenings at Countywide Recycling & Disposal Facility at East Sparta.
According to the article, OEPA officials feared using the word “fire” to describe what was happening beneath Countywide as early as last summer, despite at least one official’s claim that there was a fire.
“It’s more of the same,” Commissioner Kerry Metzger said. “Nobody wanted to step up and take ownership. It’s unfortunate, but with these large bureaucracies they tend to not listen to public opinion and hide info.”
According to the article, one EPA staffer in Columbus wrote that all the data about the landfill’s problems were provided by the owners of the landfill, that nobody with experience with landfill fires had evaluated the situation and that “the prime concern of the (Twinsburg) district office was public and media opinion.”
“When you see things like that, it just backs up that there is no reason to have any trust,” Metzger said. “They should have been bringing in independent researchers and gathering data on the landfill independently from the get-go. They’re the EPA.”
Commissioner Chris Abbuhl said the article illustrated what commissioners have said all along.
“The fact is that someone claimed it was on fire in the summer and there was no urgency to investigate,” Abbuhl said.
Commissioners said that in fairness to Chris Korleski, the new director of the Ohio EPA, they will have to let his administration do its job.
So far, by his declaring Countywide the EPA’s No. 1 priority, commissioners said it looks like things are headed in the right direction.
Dick Harvey, a member of Club 3000, said he worked with Bob Downing from the Akron Beacon Journal to compare findings after each completed a separate file review of the Ohio EPA’s interoffice memos.
“It’s been really frustrating for (Club 3000),” Harvey said. “The truth is that the EPA’s Northeast District was told Countywide was on fire and literally ignored it.”
Todd Thalhamer, the California EPA specialist on underground fires who was called in to investigate the potential fire at Countywide, returned to California after a site visit at Countywide last Friday.
Thalhamer said then he planned to review his findings and the evidence at hand before issuing a decision. He said he hoped to have his findings submitted to the Ohio EPA by Korleski’s Feb. 21 deadline.
