November 19, 2024
On May 31 the Department of Environmental Conservation Watershed Management Division issued the final amended Permit for the pilot leachate pretreatment system on site at the NEWSVT Coventry landfill. The pretreatment system is supposed to filter toxic PFAS chemicals from the 60,000 gallons a day of leachate produced by the landfill. “Forever” PFAS chemicals , found in leachate and toxic even in minute amounts, are known to contaminate the environment and cause serious health effects, including cancer, in humans. Many doubts exist about the safety and effectiveness of the relatively new SAFF technology chosen by NEWSVT. At a December 12, 2023 public meeting in Newport, many concerns from the public were raised about the chosen leachate pretreatment technology, including that only five- out of the existing 15,000 PFAS chemicals- would be required to be filtered to “non-detect” levels. “Non-detect” amounts of PFAS chemicals are not safe levels. Research has proved that many of the thousands of other PFAS compounds will escape filtration entirely due to their microscopic size, will enter the environment, accumulate over time, and cause harm to humans and wildlife that drink or eat PFAS contaminated water and food. Now the pilot leachate pretreatment permit has been issued, with some very sketchy language that creates loopholes big enough to drive an MBI truck through once the pilot ends. These loopholes: 1) Would open the door to making the pilot leachate pretreatment facility a permanent installation on the landfill, without any opportunity for public review or comment once the180-day pilot ends; 2) Could allow for the resumption of the disposal of “treated” leachate into international Lake Memphremagog, a drinking water reservoir for 175,000 Quebec citizens; 3) Could allow for the import of thousands of gallons a day of leachate from other landfills; 4) Would establish performance standards that may not be as strict as results other available leachate pretreatment technologies provide; 5) Allow for the return to operating leachate pretreatment 24/7 without full time staffing, as occurred in February, 2024 with the accidental spill of nearly 9,000 gallons of leachate. Prior to 2019, over 41 million gallons of toxic leachate were disposed of into Newport’s Waste Water Treatment Facility, unfiltered for PFAS. The 2019 moratorium imposed by Act 250 forbids treatment or disposal of landfill leachate anywhere in the Memphremagog watershed. The moratorium, designed to protect Memphremagog’s water quality from further contamination, now it is at risk of being sidestepped. The citizens of the Lake Memphremagog region need to come together to say “No” to permanent siting of this leachate treatment pilot in Coventry, “No” to returning to leachate disposal into the watershed, “No” to contaminating the drinking water reservoir of 175,000 Quebec citizens, “No” to polluting our recreational waters, our wildlife habitat, the foundations of our regional tourist economy, “No” to eroding our property values and tax base. Yes, leachate must be filtered for toxic landfill contaminants including PFAS, but only with the safest and most effective technologies and not in the Memphremagog watershed, ever.
