EGLE will be holding a community meeting to discuss the recently announced settlement in the Attorney General's lawsuit with the Arbor Hills Landfill on Thursday, April 28th at 6 PM. The meeting will be held virtually (video conference). Good attendance is extremely important to let EGLE and our elected leaders know how important the landfill issue is to our community. There will be a chance to ask questions during the community meeting so please have your questions ready. Please plan to attend this important meeting.
Information on how to attend the community meeting can be FOUND HERE.
Here are a few examples of some of the changes which are planned at the Arbor Hills Landfill in the coming months:
Arbor Hills will be opening a Household Hazardous Waste drop-off center later this year. This will be a free service for all residents of the City of Northville, Northville Township, and all of Washtenaw County for the next 10 years. The landfill is offering this service to reduce the monetary penalty in the settlement.
Arbor Hills is required to install six air monitoring stations along Napier Road. The air monitoring stations will be used to confirm the location and source of noxious odors to assist the landfill in more quickly developing effective corrective measures. EGLE used air modeling information to optimize the number of monitoring stations and their location. The system will continuously monitor for hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and methane (CH4) concentrations. Data from the air monitoring stations will be available on a public website beginning in May. This is the first landfill in Michigan with a perimeter monitoring system and may set a precedent for other landfills if it is effective. The Conservancy Initiative believes the perimeter monitoring is a "big win" for Northville Township, but we also believe that the odor complaints we have been reporting for years are a far cheaper form of the same information, if only Arbor Hills would believe our complaints.
Figure 1 - Monitoring station located along fenceline on Napier Road
The settlement requires Arbor Hills to scan the entire surface of the landfill monthly with methane detectors to find and correct methane leaks. Many of the surface scans will be conducted using drones. This technology can be used to quickly produce “heat maps” showing the locations of the methane leaks from the surface of the landfill. The Conservancy Initiative will attempt to obtain the results of these drone surveys to use them as another tool to track the progress of the landfill.
Figure 2 - Aerial Image showing methane emissions from landfill
Arbor Hills is constructing a new landfill cell (Cell 6) near the corner of Six Mile and Napier Road. When completed later this year, this will become the active portion of the landfill, meaning potential odors, dust, windblown trash, nuisance birds, etc. will be that much closer to our neighborhoods.
Plans are moving forward to upgrade the gas recovery facilities at the landfill by installing a Renewable Natural Gas Plant (RNG). The RNG plant is a significant investment and will replace the landfill gas-to-energy plant and will significantly reduce emissions at the site by eliminating the need to combust the landfill gas (landfill gas will be purified for use as natural gas). The RNG facility is part of an earlier settlement with the USEPA and EGLE announced by the US Department of Justice.
Please plan to attend the Community meeting on Thursday, April 28th and have your questions ready to submit.