Arsenic levels in leachate among factors affecting new contract for treatment

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Evan Brandt
Pottstown (Penn.) Mercury
01/01/2006

POTTSTOWN -- Over the past 10 years that polluted water leaching from the Pottstown Landfill has been treated at the borough’s sewer plant, the level of arsenic permitted in the leachate has been exceeded at least six times, but no fines were ever levied, an analysis of monthly reports has revealed.

The permit which governs the limits on dangerous substances in the leachate -- there are many other than arsenic -- is issued by the Pottstown Borough Authority, which operates the wastewater treatment plant on Industrial Boulevard.

The permit allows the borough authority to issue violations that "may result in the imposition of civil and/or criminal penalties of up to $25,000 per day per violation."

However, since 1990, when the current leachate treatment contract between Pottstown and Waste Management Inc., was enacted, only two notices of violation were ever issued against the landfill, and both those were later retracted at the request of the landfill’s owner, Waste Management Inc., the reports show. . . Read more