Mining The Landfill: Barge Garbage Out?

By land or by sea?

By sea would, according to consultants, be the cheapest and least intrusive way to transport out of state the expected 150,000 tons of garbage to be mined from the Montauk landfill, the most problematic and costly aspect of the most problematic and costly project ever undertaken by East Hampton Town.

Following a Sept. 23 meeting to firm up a required work plan for the project, Town Board members, with one exception, remained undecided about whether to send off the garbage by barge, by train, or by truck. But Town Supervisor Cathy Lester and the engineers who designed a plan for reclaiming the smaller of the town's two landfills all favored the barge option.

"Anywhere we can save the town $2.5 million it would be unwise to not look at that as a real option," said Supervisor Lester.

Cheapest Option

That option would cost $6.75 million over the projected four to six-year life of the mining project and, though it would necessitate a $750,000 expense for building a loading zone, a roughly 1,200-yard road to Fort Pond Bay, and a temporary dock, the engineers calculated it would still save $2.25 million over the most expensive option, trucking.

Moving the garbage by rail would require building a $250,000 spur from the north end of the landfill to the Long Island Rail Road tracks that run through adjacent Hither Woods, about 500 feet away, plus an estimated $8.1 million in transport fees. Trucking would precipitate just a $10,000 capital expense but would cost $9.75 million for disposal.

Highway Congestion

Supervisor Lester and the engineers found trucking the least desirable method, and not just because of the expense. They noted the other two options would avoid putting more trucks on the already congested, lone artery that leaves the South Fork, Route 27. And the railway posed its own particular problem - New York City has a moratorium against hauling garbage through Queens until the year 2000.

One of the engineers, Joseph F. Cline, said that if the Town Board chooses the railway as its method, transporting garbage couldn't begin until then. But that would not pose a problem, he added.

The town has until February to choose a contractor and until May to sink the first shovel, and the first parts of the mound to be mined contain mostly brush, metal, and construction and demolition debris, all highly recyclable and therefore involving very little garbage; what was mined could be stockpiled until the end of 1999.

The "B" Word

The three engineers who designed the work plan are from McLean Associates of Brookhaven, which serves as the town's principal engineering firm. They are Vincent Gaudiello Jr., the project manager, and Mr. Cline and Chris F. Dwyer, who specialize in engineering waste management methods.

They advised that the town would need to acquire easements from the county and state to traverse a part of Hither Woods, parkland owned jointly by the town, state, and county, between the landfill and the bay. But once at the shore, they said, loading by crane would be simple, and the barges will find deep water within 200 feet of shore.

Fearful of calling to mind the Islip Town garbage barge fiasco of a decade ago, they admitted to deliberately avoiding references to barges.

"Don't say the 'B' word. We don't want that out there," laughed Mr. Gaudiello.

Guaranteed Delivery

Instead, Supervisor Lester and the engineers repeatedly stressed that the garbage would be dumped into standard-sized shipping containers - called intermodal containers, they can be stacked on a barge or a train bed or hauled by tractor trailer - that would be sealed before loading onto a barge.

The company hired to mine the landfill not only would have to guarantee the garbage a final resting place, maintaining a manifest showing that every container met a legitimate fate, but would have to document the availability of a back-up location as well, they said.

Pungent Barge

The trend in New York and elsewhere has been to permanently close municipal landfills. Nearly all the landfills still operating in the United States are privately owned and have in place the permits to accept garbage that arrives by road, rail, or water, said Mr. Cline.

The odoriferous Islip garbage barge made international news when it left Long Island without a secure destination and spent months bouncing around the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico in search of a place that would accept it.

Practical Proposals

Steve Latham, the attorney who has been advising the town for years on landfill-related matters, agreed with Mr. Gaudiello and Michael Haran, the town budget officer, that asking bidders to write a proposal for how they would get the job done - naming their preference or ability among the three transport methods - was better than asking them to offer a price to meet a rigid set of specifications.

"Let them tell us how they're going to get the garbage from 'A' to 'B' and how much it will cost," said Mr. Gaudiello. "With a request for proposals, you're acquiring somebody's knowledge and expertise," added Mr. Haran.

First In The State

Mr. Latham did caution, though, that the State Department of Environmental Conservation will want details of how the operation will work before it gives final approval.

Though the dozen participants in last week's meeting made only passing reference to it, East Hampton will be the first municipality in New York to completely mine and reclaim a landfill and D.E.C. officials, though they gave preliminary approval, are reportedly still wary.

The standard procedure for meeting the state requirement to permanently close all landfills has been to encase each one in a liner and cap. Only upstate Edinburgh has completed a mining project and that was just to reduce the footprint and height by half.

East Hampton conducted a pilot mining study in 1996 of both the Montauk landfill and the town's larger one, off Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton. The subsequent feasibility study found that the cost of mining the 100-foot-high mound in the middle of the 60-acre East Hampton landfill could be prohibitive, an estimated $39 million compared to the $28 million cost of capping.

Montauk A Precedent

As a result, the town asked the D.E.C. to allow the progress of the Montauk project to determine whether the town could and would mine East Hampton, cap it, or craft some combination of the two. The D.E.C. agreed, giving the town until May 1, 2002, to write a closure plan for East Hampton.

The work plan for Montauk calls for one contractor to handle all three aspects of the project: setting up and operating the equipment that will separate the reusable sand, soil, concrete, and other materials from the garbage; transporting the garbage to an out-of-state landfill or incinerator, and finding a broker to buy the recyclable materials.

Recyclers Interested

Considering the competitiveness of the recyclables market, including crushed concrete and metal, Mr. Gaudiello confirmed that the firms bidding on the contract would most likely be brokers of recyclable materials. The value of recyclables is such that a broker could find it worthwhile to either become the mining contractor or form a partnership with a specialty firm.

But, it is highly unlikely that the contractor would be local, given the necessary insurance and performance bonds, said Mr. Gaudiello, adding that he has been fielding phone calls for a year from major national waste haulers and recyclers, such as B.F.I. and Waste Management Inc., who expressed "considerable interest" in bidding on the project.

McLean Associates designed a method that would, its engineers said, allow the town to mine in the warmer months when the stink of unearthed putrescent materials could otherwise make the surrounding neighborhoods unbearable. The preliminary plan had called for mining only during the cool months, to minimize the smell.

But, by scooping loads of garbage from the toe of the mound and allowing it to fall down on itself, and by heading into the mound from east to west, the prevailing summertime winds, which are from the southwest, would always pass over the untouched side and the top of the mound on the way to Fort Pond Bay, picking up less of the escaping stink on the way, they said.

Safety Training

And, if that doesn't work, they said, there is a foam advertised as biodegradable and nontoxic that can help keep down dust and smell on the working face of the mound.

As a precaution, the contractor would have to have each and every worker trained in handling hazardous materials and in other safety techniques. Though the pilot mining study uncovered no industrial waste, Mr. Gaudiello said he and his fellow engineers were taking a hazardous material training course too, just in case.

In addition to being responsible for removing any hazardous waste, the contractor would also have to bear the burden of containing and removing any leachate from rainwater running off the exposed garbage, which most likely could be taken to the town sewage plant in East Hampton, they said.

Like Lasagna

The engineers reiterated a crucial point made in the mining feasibility study, that it would be cost effective to keep as much of the soil and sand, and to sell as much of the concrete and other recyclables, as possible. The more that is used to fill the hole that will result from mining or that becomes a source of revenue, the less the town will have to pay to have removed.

At an estimated $45 a ton to remove garbage by barge, $54 a ton by rail, and $65 a ton by truck, the fewer tons the better, said Mr. Gaudiello. On the other hand, Mr. Cline said, crushed concrete, for example, could bring in $5 to $10 a ton.

Setting A Price

The pilot mining project showed the major portion of the landfill was indeed sand, soil, and concrete. In operation from 1967 to 1989, the landfill mound was constructed like lasagna, layers of garbage stabilized between layers of dirt. The feasibility study figured 76 percent of the mound was reclaimable sand alone.

The firms bidding on the contract could examine the study, said Mr. Latham, and possibly find opportunities other than concrete, based on their own expertise and contacts in the waste management industry, to turn a profit in ways the town or other bidders may overlook.

But he and other consultants strongly advised the board to require bidders to offer one set price per ton for transporting garbage out of town, for the duration of the project, so the taxpayers would not fall victim to the vagaries of the markets that control the industry.

JULIA C. MEAD