Commissioners: Is EPA moving too slowly on Countywide fire?

By BARB LIMBACHER
The Times-Reporter

BOLIVAR - Tuscarawas County commissioners expressed their disappointment with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency regarding an ongoing underground landfill fire.

The comments came Friday during and after the board of directors meeting of the Stark-Tuscarawas-Wayne Joint Solid Waste Management District. The issue arose regarding the Oct. 1 letter to officials of Countywide Recycling and Disposal Facility near Bolivar about installing a firebreak as an interim fire suppression measure. OEPA Director Chris Korleski wrote to Countywide officials that the fire is migrating throughout the original 88 acres and possibly into Cell 7, which was the first cell of expansion....Read more.

Landfill fire may spread to new area, EPA warns

By Bob Downing
The Akron Beacon Journal

PIKE TWP - The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency is convinced that underground fires in a 258-acre Stark County landfill are spreading throughout the landfill's original 88 acres.

EPA Director Chris Korleski, in a letter to Republic Services, said his agency is worried that the problems at Countywide Recycling & Disposal Facility in Pike Township could spread into trash dumped in new areas of the landfill.

The dump runs along the east side of Interstate 77 south of Canton....Read more.

Landfill loses ground

The Canton Repository

PIKE TWP - In May, the Stark County Board of Health renewed the operating permit for the Countywide landfill in Pike Township for the rest of the year. Before the vote, Health Commissioner William Franks said his investigation of Countywide had focused on these areas: Did the landfill pose an imminent or long-term threat to public health or the environment; what state laws has the landfill violated; can it ever be brought back into compliance?

Franks' recommendation to keep Countywide open, and the board's unanimous decision to do so, meant essentially this: They believed that Countywide's owners had done, were doing and would do enough to ensure that the landfill would operate safely. Obviously they couldn't see into the future. But developments this week call the assessment into question....Read more.

EPA orders firebreaks to be installed at landfill

By BARB LIMBACHER
The Times-Reporter

EAST SPARTA - Countywide Recycling and Disposal Facility in Pike Township, Stark County, has been instructed by Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Chris Korleski to install a firebreak between cells 8A and 8B.

The letter from Korleski was sent Monday. In the letter he instructed Republic Services of Florida, Countywide’s parent company, to install a firebreak as an interim fire suppression measure.

Countywide submitted data on March 28 in correlation with the OEPA director’s final findings and orders. Analysis of the data led the director to conclude that the fire is migrating beyond the original 88 acres and possibly into the expansion area (cell 7). Cell 8B is a new cell being prepared for future waste disposal.

Korleski said the firebreak is required to be installed to protect human health, safety and environment....Read more.

EPA tells landfill to install firebreak

BY Robert Wang
The Canton Repository

PIKE TWP - The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that an underground fire is spreading throughout the original 88 acres of the Countywide Recycling and Disposal Facility.

In a letter dated Monday, EPA Director Chris Korleski said that the fire could be moving into Cell 7, the first constructed section of the landfill's 170-acre expansion, which began taking waste in early 2005.

Korleski has ordered the landfill to take safety precautions - one in the form of a cleared strip of land - to keep the fire from spreading.

"In an effort to prevent further spread of the fire and to avoid adding additional fuel (waste) to the fire, I believe installation of a firebreak is required to protect human health, safety and the environment," Korleski wrote....Read more.