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Landfill Facility Compliance Study

Description

• Purpose
• Challenge
• Cross-Media Approach
• Outreach Effort
• Significant Features

Study Purposes

1. To provide a comprehensive inventory and assessment of municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill performance in California for the period from January 1998 through December 2001 that covers environmental media, including water, air, and gas (Phase I). This includes looking at the physical aspects of MSW landfills (such as size, waste types accepted, capacity, and setting), the environmental protection systems in place, and compliance with environmental requirements.

2. To assess current regulatory requirements for MSW landfills and determine if the requirements protect the environment on a short- and long-term basis, and to recommend possible changes to improve the regulation of California’s MSW landfills that could result in greater environmental protection (Phase II). In formulating any recommendations for improvement, researchers evaluated MSW landfill regulations from selected states and countries and identified emerging technologies that could improve regulation of the landfills.

Challenge

No one entity, be it the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), a regional water quality control board (RWQCB), the California Air Resources Board (CARB), an air district, the Board, or a local enforcement agency (LEA), has a complete picture of landfill performance across all media.  These areas of landfill performance include the following:

• Current status of landfill performance.
• Comprehensive assessment of impacts that may occur.
• Regulatory assessment to see if current regulations are effective in protecting the environment.

Cross-Media Approach

In keeping with the purpose of the study to look across all environmental media, a team was created consisting of representatives from the Board, the SWRCB, and the CARB . (The team also included a representative of the LEAs as well as representatives of public and private landfill operators in the development of the study’s scope of work.) The purpose of forming a cross-media team was to provide a comprehensive perspective in the following areas:

• Developing the scope of work.
• Selecting the contractor.
• Reviewing study deliverables.

The scope of work (MS Word, 54 KB or Adobe PDF, 57 KB), which was developed for a request for proposals (MS Word, 296 KB or Adobe PDF, 167 KB), was approved by the Board at its February 23-24, 2000, meeting (Agenda Item #34).

The request for proposals was advertised on the Department of General Services’ California State Contracts Register for six weeks, beginning on March 6, 2000. The successful bidder was brought before the Board for consideration at its May 23-24, 2000 meeting (Agenda Item #57). The Board approved GeoSyntec Consultants Inc. of Oakland, California, as the contractor for the study.

Outreach Effort

The Board has made a concerted effort to inform the following affected parties during the time of the study:

• RWQCBs 
• Air Districts
• LEAs
• Owners/operators of MSW landfills that were active during the time of the study, that have been active since 1993 and have since closed, or that closed prior to 1993 (13 landfills that closed prior to 1993 were selected for the study).

This outreach effort included a letter to all of the above and meetings with regulators to advise them of the upcoming study and to receive their feedback. A presentation was made to local enforcement agencies at the 2000 LEA Conference. E-mails were sent to everyone above, transmitting each deliverable as each became available; announcing upcoming presentations of the deliverables that would be made by the contractor to the Board at a regular Board meeting; and soliciting review and comment on the accuracy of the information gathered by the contractor for each landfill. The Landfill Facility Compliance Study Web site was created as another means of keeping everyone above as well as the general public informed of the status of the landfill study and to provide access to all study deliverables.

Significant Features

• The study consists of two phases. The first phase was completed in November 2003, and the second phase was completed in June 2004.

• Phase I is the comprehensive inventory and assessment of MSW landfill performance across all environmental media for the time period from January 1998 through December 2001. Because the inventory is a snapshot of landfills for a four-year period, the data compiled covers the same time period.

• Phase II, which builds upon the information collected in Phase I, is the assessment of current regulatory effectiveness for MSW landfills on a short- and long-term basis. This part included an evaluation of the potential for improvements to current standards, which included looking at landfill regulations of selected states and countries and new and emerging landfill technologies.

• Phase II is a more in-depth look at landfills that looks at operational history and records, compliance history, and water quality monitoring, gas monitoring, and air monitoring records over time.

• A major emphasis of the study was to base findings on real data initially collected first-hand from regulators’ and operators’ files by the contractor, and then submitted to regulators and landfill owners/operators for verification, correction, and filling in of any data gaps.

• The information collected on landfills, which was limited to those records that are required by regulators, is considered public information and available to the public via the Board’s Web site and can be mailed upon request.

• The study produced eight deliverables. A table on the Results page enables you to view all of the deliverables.

• It is important to the Board that the information provided in the study be accurate. To help ensure accuracy of the information provided in the checklist of pertinent environmental regulatory requirements (Deliverable 1), Board program staff posted the deliverable on the Results page, e-mailed a copy (or a link whereby a copy could be downloaded) to regulators, landfill owners/operators, and interested parties, and mailed a hard copy on request. Regulators, landfill owners and operators, and interested parties thus had the opportunity to review and comment on the accuracy of the information presented. 
  
  In the case of the two comprehensive landfill databases (Deliverables 2 and 4), in order to validate the accuracy of the data before it is posted on the Board's Web site, the information was first provided to both regulators and landfill owners/operators for early review and comment prior to posting.

• Every comment received for the above-mentioned deliverables (1, 2, and 4) was forwarded to the contractor for possible incorporation into the final deliverable. The contractor prepared a response to comments letter for deliverables 1 and 2 indicating what action was taken with the comments received and why. CIWMB staff forwarded the letter to each commenter after review by the landfill study team (consisting of representatives from the Board, the State Water Resources Control Board, and the California Air Resources Board). The letter was also posted on the Status of Study page.

• Each of the deliverables that consisted of reports were brought before the Board for review and comment at a regular, monthly Board meeting.

Last updated: November 08, 2007