Company eyes reopening Massachusetts landfill for construction soils

More than six years after the closure of the South Hadley landfill in Massachusetts, a Holyoke-based company has submitted a proposal to reopen the site as a construction soils landfill, reports the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

The proposal, which the Select Board considered for the first time at its Nov. 10 meeting, is in the “very, very preliminary” stages, Chairman Jeff Cyr said. But for some residents, the landfill is a familiar topic.

The landfill, at 12 Industrial Drive, was capped in 2014 after a contentious final few years between residents and the site’s former manager. Neighboring residents had complained about bad odor, environmental hazards and increased traffic associated with the landfill.

But Kip Foley, principal of Closure Management LLC, told the Daily Hampshire Gazette that his company seeks to reopen the site in a way that would mitigate or eliminate some of the previous complaints associated with the landfill while providing the town with an estimated revenue of at least $1 million per year.

Construction projects frequently generate excess soil that cannot be reused on site because of contamination or physical constraints.

“I’m fully aware, at least generally, of what the concerns of the community were” with the landfill, Foley said, “but this is a very different plan, and construction soils don’t raise the same level of potential nuisance conditions that a classic solid waste landfill does regarding odors, generation of methane gases and impacts on groundwater.”

He adds, “A dedicated soils landfill is significantly less impactful on the environment, but also on abutters to the facility.”

Foley has previously worked on remediated waste sites in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York, and his company develops closure models “to reduce expense and creative redevelopment strategies,” according to the Closure Management website.

The proposal calls for a feasibility study and management at the company’s expense. If approved, Closure Management would pay the town $5 for each ton of soil accepted at the facility, totaling an estimated payment of at least $1 million per year, according to Foley.

“The site has some unused capacity, and there’s kind of a unique market opportunity to utilize that capacity, serve some market needs and generate some pretty significant revenue for the town of South Hadley with pretty minor impacts to the community,” Foley said.