Arcelor Mittal representatives described their proposed new landfill at the Burns Harbor plant Wednesday as one that would provide more environmental protection in terms of the liner, leachate collection system, and eventual covering than what’s now required by state law.

But such assurances didn’t seem to sway a number of those attending an informational meeting at the Burns Harbor Town Hall. Several times, audience members asked questions about the landfill proposal that company representatives declined to answer, saying the topic fell outside the scope of the meeting.

The meeting was required by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management as a part of Mittal’s landfill permit application process. IDEM itself will hold an official public hearing on Dec. 2 before deciding whether to grant the permit.

Until then, the public can review the permit application online or at Thomas Library. Questions can also be sent to Mittal by calling 787-3333 or by emailing burnsharborinfo@arcelormittal.com

Several questions raised Wednesday concerned the steel mill’s stockpiled wastes, which some referred to as “Easterly’s Pile,” a reference to IDEM Commissioner Tom Easterly, who once worked at the Burns Harbor plant.

When the landfill proposal came before the Burns Harbor Board of Zoning Appeals in June for a required zoning amendment, company representatives said that the onsite landfilling operations would be far better for the environment than the current practice of stockpiling the wastes and trucking out other materials to Michigan. But at Wednesday’s meeting, questions about the stockpiled materials weren’t directly addressed.

Kim Ferraro of Legal Environmental Aid Foundation asked if IDEM knows that the stockpiled materials would be landfilled. Attorney Jessica De Monte, who is providing outside legal counsel for Mittal, responded that the meeting was limited only to issues involving the pending application, and she urged Ferraro to review that application to review the wastes involved. Ferraro said she did review the application, but couldn’t find her answer about the stockpiles. “I think that’s a perfectly reasonable question,” she said.

The meeting appeared to leave a number of audience members frustrated. “What a joke,” muttered one person at the meeting’s conclusion.

Mittal first received a special exception from the Burns Harbor BZA in 2007 for a solid waste landfill to accept the sludge byproduct of the steel mill’s wastewater treatment plant. Mittal this year filed a zoning amendment with the town seeking approval to landfill additional wastes; the BZA initially rejected the zoning amendment, prompting a lawsuit from Mittal. Later, the BZA reversed its decision, and Mittal dropped its suit.

Still pending, however, is the required permit from IDEM. According to an IDEM fact sheet at the meeting, the new landfill, known as the Deerfield Storage Facility, will consist of about 75 acres and will accept wastewater treatment plant sludge, blast furnace filter cake, basic oxygen furnace filter cake/sludge, coke oven dust, coal, coke, grinding sludge, rubble debris, and burnt lime.

All of those materials are considered solid waste and are not classified as hazardous or toxic.

Steve Putrich, a landfill engineer with the consulting firm of CEC, outlined the basics of the landfill construction at Wednesday’s meeting. Current rules for solid waste landfills require a liner consisting of 15 inches of low-permeable clay. By contrast, the new Mittal landfill would include a bottom liner of 12 inches covered by a membrane, a separate cushion layer, a 12-inch layer of aggregate with piping to collect liquid leachate, covered by a filter layer and then a 12-inch fine aggregate layer.

Putrich also noted that IDEM currently doesn’t require a leachate collection layer for landfills of this type. He also said the eventual landfill cap -- to be installed after the landfill’s estimated life of 40 years -- would consist of a six-inch clay layer, a membrane, a drainage layer, 30 inches of cover soil and six inches of topsoil. Currently, IDEM only requires that landfill caps consist of six inches of topsoil and three feet of compacted clay.

Despite those added features, audience member Larry Davis, a long-time employee at the Burns Harbor plant, questioned why the landfill is even necessary. At Mittal’s facility in Brazil, more than 99 percent of similar wastes generated are recycled, he said.

“Why do we have to settle for less here than when they’re doing in South America?” Davis asked.

Another audience member, Don Goldfarb, who serves on a Citizen Advisory Committee for Mittal, commended the company for being environmentally minded and forthcoming with its landfill information. He also said that the citizens committee has known about the proposed landfill for some time. But another CAC member, environmentalist Charlotte Read, said the CAC also urged Mittal long ago to look at alternatives to landfilling the “monster collection” of stockpiled materials. She said that recycling and reducing the wastes would be preferable to placing them in a landfill.

According to the IDEM fact sheet, the IDEM permit manager for the Mittal proposal is Alicia Brown, who is available to answer questions about the permit application or the permit process at (317) 232-8734 or by email at albrown@idem.in.gov

As part of the required public hearing, the public can submit written comments to Brown at IDEM, Office of Land Quality, Solid Waste Permits Section, 100 North Senate Ave., Room, 1154, Indianapolis, Ind., 46204-2251. Comments can be sent to Brown’s email or faxed to her at (317) 232-3403.

The permit application is available at Thomas Library and online at http://12.186.81.89/Pages/Public/Search.aspx

 Enter “Deerfield Storage Facility” in the primary name field and click the search button.

The public hearing will be 6 to 9 p.m. on Dec. 2 at the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission, 100 Southport Road, Portage.

Posted 11/19/2009