Rumpke granted permit to expand Cincinnati landfill

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) has granted a permit to allow Rumpke Consolidated Companies Inc., Cincinnati, to expand its use of the Bond Road landfill in Whitewater Township.

The new permit will enable the company to haul up to 1,500 tons per day to the 575-acre site on the Ohio-Indiana border, reports WCPO, which is more than 15 times more than its previous permit allowed.

Rumpke says it has no immediate plans to haul more waste to the site, but rather is accommodating for “future needs of the region.”

“We don’t have an exact timeline of when we might start utilizing it,” Rumpke Spokesperson Molly Yeager told WCPO. “We have been working on constructing a new entrance off Sand Run Road which will give us better access to the site. But that infrastructure is not complete yet.”

The permit says Rumpke anticipates hauling about 400 tons to the site daily, a pace that would keep the landfill in use for 48 years. If Rumpke expands to the 1,500-ton maximum, the landfill will reach capacity in less than 13 years.

“We’re just trying to help protect the environment from society’s trash,” Yeager says. “Landfills are highly regulated. They are designed to protect the environment from [waste]. There [are] many environmental safeguards in there to ensure that things such as wastewater are properly handled here at the site.”

Ohio EPA held a public hearing in April to address any community concerns, many of them related to increased traffic and groundwater contamination.

Of the questions that were addressed, the Ohio EPA explained that Rumpke has four storage facilities totaling 80,000 gallons to collect groundwater runoff, or leachate, from the site.

That storage capacity could increase to 322,000 gallons under the new permit. Air quality is regulated by an EPA permit last renewed in June. Ohio EPA says it lacks current authority to regulate the hauling of solid waste from locations outside Hamilton County and it can’t “consider roadway impacts or house values when evaluating a solid waste permit application.”