Everything Except Transparent

DUMP continues its fight to shine a spotlight on the $2.5 million Surface Active Foam Fractionation (SAFF) landfill leachate pretreatment system that has been in place and operating at the NEWSVT Inc. landfill in Coventry since 2023. The SAFF is supposed to remove PFAS (“forever chemicals”) from the leachate before it gets shipped to the City of Montpelier sewage plant for final treatment. So far there have been no real opportunities for the people of the Northeast Kingdom and Quebec to participate in a public review of the system. DUMP’s fight is to force NEWSVT to file an application for review under Vermont’s Act 250 program – that will mean a public forum to consider all of the impacts of the SAFF system.

The operation of the SAFF creates PFAS “residuals” in a concentrated form and these dangerous residuals are merely tossed back into the landfill for “disposal”. There has already been a spill of over 8,000 gallons of leachate from the SAFF into the stormwater collection system at the landfill. Last year the air quality division of the Agency of Natural Resources decided that a permit was not needed for the SAFF after all-even though the company had filed for a permit 8 months prior. DUMP opposed the decision of the air quality division. Now, over a year later, the division is reversing its decision and will require a permit for the pollutant emissions from the SAFF.

The SAFF (now being run as a “pre-pilot” project with no reporting required. The official pilot is due to start in Q2 of 2026. The project has been designed to eventually become a permanent fixture at the landfill) represents serious long term concerns for Lake Memphremagog and the people of the Northeast. There is reason to believe that leachate will be imported to Coventry from other landfills for pretreatment. Once the SAFF is allowed to become a permanent facility then the question is whether the next step by NEWSVT will be to construct a privately owned plant for final treatment of the leachate before it is discharged into the Black River. Even if NEWSVT does not pursue a private treatment plant, the threat is real that it will seek to end the “moratorium” on the use of the City of Newport sewage plant for disposal of the “pretreated” leachate -and that will mean discharges with contaminants into the Lake.

DUMP succeeded in getting a ruling from Act 250 that the SAFF requires a permit. NEWSVT appealed that decision to the Vermont Superior Court. The lawyers for NEWSVT have been raising every possible obstacle to block DUMP from participating in the appeal and defending the ruling that an Act 250 review is necessary. NEWSVT and its corporate lawyers argue everything except in favor of a transparent review for the people of the Northeast Kingdom and Quebec. DUMP will continue “to fight the good fight” on behalf of the Lake and the residents of the Kingdom. Join us in the fight, click here.

More information on the SAFF fight will be available at DUMP’s first Annual Meeting of our members on October 29th at the East Side Restaurant. Watch your inbox for details. We hope to see you there!

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Don’t Undermine Memphremagog’s Purity, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization. Donations are deductible as allowed by law.

 October 3, 2025

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