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Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Environment - Stories today on "blue bag waste", environmental cleanup, septics
Chicago's "Blue bag waste" is coming to Indiana, again, but this time to a landfill. The Chicago Tribune reports today:
Despite failing to meet requirements for recycling the city's household garbage, a politically connected company will continue to run Mayor Richard Daley's blue bag program for another two years.The Louisville Courier Journal reports today, in a story by Ben Zion Hershberg, that:City officials also said Monday they have agreed to let Allied Waste Transportation send thousands of tons of waste to an Indiana landfill but count it as recycling. The decision drew criticism from environmental activists, but it would allow City Hall and Allied again to boost the percentage of household garbage that it claims to recycle. * * *
Indiana authorities shut down the [last] operation in March after the Tribune reported that the farm took in much more screened waste than the state permitted. The city's recycling rate was cut roughly in half.
Now Allied officials say they will compost the screened waste in a landfill in Fulton County, Ind., and use it to cover mounds of garbage. City officials agreed to let this plan count as recycling in an Aug. 30 decision by Daley's then-interim chief procurement officer, Mary Dempsey, who consulted with Environment Commissioner Sadhu Johnston.
Environmental activists, who have long opposed the blue bag program, said they are glad screened waste is going to a landfill rather than being spread on farmland. But they scorned the notion that the new plan represents progress, because the goal of recycling is to divert waste from landfills.
"Once again, the city is looking for ways of meeting its recycling goals through fake diversion," said Betsy Vandercook, president of the Chicago Recycling Coalition.
Contractors set up equipment yesterday in New Albany to start moving 14,000 tons of contaminated dirt from the site of the Scribner Place downtown development project.In a story from Kentucky, the Louisville Courier Journal reports:The environmental cleanup is to be completed by Thanksgiving, said Curt Jones, senior project manager for Shield Environmental Associates, the city's consultant. * * *
The dirt -- more than 500 truckloads contaminated with lead, petroleum products and, to a more limited extent, arsenic -- will be taken to the Outer Loop Landfill in Louisville for disposal, Jones said as he reviewed plans with contractors.
As the dirt is removed, an environmental testing company will take samples of what remains to determine whether state-approved goals for the cleanup are being met, Jones said.
The most extensive excavation will be near the former site of the Double 7 tire company near the corner of Main and West First streets, Jones said.
Foundries once occupied the site and lead used in their processes -- along with hydrocarbons that apparently were waste products from Double 7 -- must be removed, he said. Excavations at and near the old Double 7 site are expected to be 13 feet deep, Jones said.
SOMERSET, Ky. -- A southeastern Kentucky town is working to stop the flow of human waste into a small lake that supplies drinking water for residents in five counties.About 35 homes along the northeast shoreline of Lake Linville have malfunctioning septic tanks that spew raw sewage each time commodes are flushed, Mount Vernon Mayor Clarice Kirby said.
That will change soon because of a $750,000 federal grant from the government-sponsored environmental organization PRIDE. The money will pay for construction of a municipal sewer line along the edge of the 440-acre reservoir.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 18, 2005 01:35 PM
Posted to Environment