Island Park landfill.

AP Enterprise, the company capping Portsmouth's Island Park landfill, has filed a request for an additional year to complete the last 20% of the project, according to documents distributed today by Mark Dennen of the RI Dept. of Environmental Management. The "Beneficial Use Determination," under which the work has been proceeding, is set to expire on September 17.

Writing for APE, environmental consultant Tim O'Connor blames the "constraints imposed by both the replacement of the Sakonnet River Bridge and the weak economy" for the slow progress: "A number of competing landfills had temporarily closed," O'Connor explained, which had provided a stream of material. "The competing landfills are back open and Boston soil cannot be economically shipped to Portsmouth at this time."

Also, O'Connor noted, "The sources of soil in our market area of Rhode Island have not been sufficient to find all the necessary shaping and grading material as well as final cap. However, the slow improvement of the local economy should provide enough material to finish in the coming months, but, certainly not by September."

And the Sakonnet River Bridge -- which previously was blamed as a problem for trucks because of weight limits -- now comes in for a new criticism, as O'Connor says that shipments to Portsmouth will be "further discouraged by tolls."

"The primary reasons the project has not been completed are beyond APE's control," O'Connor said, asking RIDEM to grant the request for additional time.

Also in today's communication from RIDEM is a letter closing an issue with soil exceeding the residential limit of 7 mg/kg not being immediately covered, following an on-site inspection that showed "the site is in compliance." Dennen reminds APE of their obligation: "Please be advised that you are responsible for continued compliance with all of the conditions of your 2012 Beneficial Use Determination."

Links to the request for extension and compliance letter.

Ryan Crowley, constituent liaison for Gov. Lincoln Chafee, responded "directly on his behalf" by e-mail this afternoon to my letter about the behavior of opponents of Portsmouth's Island Park landfill capping project — printed this week in the Newport Daily News, Sakonnet Times, Portsmouth Patch, and RI Future.

Regarding the public behavior of the protesters, Crowley responded that DEM was not present during the event at the landfill, but, "at a public meeting earlier that year, individuals from the Department felt the conduct of the opponents was threatening enough that Portsmouth Police were called in at their request."

And on the matter of the complaints the group keeps lobbing at DEM, Crowley said, "you quite accurately note that there is clearly a pattern [of] unsubstantiated allegations. According to DEM the latest allegation involved a claim that soil was highly contaminated with lead coming from a school in Fall River to the project. When DEM researched the complaint, the City Official quoted denied making any such statement about lead in soil. Both third party sampling and the DEM's own confirmation sampling showed there were no exceedences of lead in any of the soils. DEM says this is an illustrative example of the unsubstantiated complaints received over the course of this project."

Editorial note: A big thank you to Gov. Chafee. It makes me feel better that the torch and pitchfork crowd aren't the only people who get his attention. Thank you, sir.

Today's GoLocalProv has a story about the nearly one hundred abandoned landfill sites in Rhode Island, and if Portsmouth's Sen. Chris Ottiano (R-11) has has way, capping them could get a lot harder.

On Feb 13, 2012, Sen. Ottiano appeared before the Portsmouth Town Council and promised to introduce (with Sen. DaPonte of East Providence) legislation on landfills which would provide "More gates for the Town Council or municipality or our constituents to have some say and be able to potentially slow or temporarily stop the process if they see the need." (See 89:40 here)

Here's the problem: What constitutes "need" -- at least in the case of a landfill in the town of Portsmouth -- is a group (whose spokesperson is a RISC board member) which has, over the past year, ignored the science, distorted facts on a petition, refused to trust test results or the DEM, and used political pressure to try to halt a project to cap an unquestionably contaminated site. These are the voices that Sen. Ottiano's torch-and-pitchfork bill would empower.

What follows is a letter I sent to Gov. Chafee, DEM Director Janet Coit, and Sen. Ottiano last week, which appeared in yesterday's Newport Daily News:

(The following post is appended)

Crossposted from RI Future.

In March, 2011, a group of protestors wearing respirators and Tyvek suits surrounded my 11-year-old son on Park Ave. "If you think the landfill is safe," they said, "Maybe we should throw you in there."

Although I was just feet away, I couldn't hear this. I was also surrounded by people shouting and waving signs to keep Mario Hilario from interviewing me about scientifically established safe levels of arsenic. This, after a Patch reporter caught a protester on video yelling in my face, prompting a call to the Portsmouth police.

Such is the character of the people opposing the landfill capping work in Island Park: they threaten children and shout down those who try to communicate facts. I have a thick skin, but my son was traumatized.

Over the past year, they lobbed dozens of accusations at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM) -- documented on a RIDEM web site http://www.dem.ri.gov/programs/benviron/waste/portsmouthlf.htm -- but none of their paranoid speculations have survived contact with reality.

When you read the RIDEM responses, you find phrases like, "The characterization that the Department chose between the Commission and Dr. Vanderslice is not accurate," and, "These assumptions are completely inconsistent with the Regulations, the Commission's recommendations or actual site conditions," and, pointedly, "As is frequently the case on meetings about controversial topics, recollections and interpretations about what was said, as well as speculation on the motives of the participants, are frequently at odds. At this point, the Department feels it has reached the point where it should simply be recognized that the commenters' recollection and interpretations of what was said are at odds with the Department's participants."

That last one is about as close as a public official ever gets to telling someone they are flat-out lying.

But the opponents have little choice, because the facts are inconvenient. Batches of soil brought in over the past month were tested -- http://www.dem.ri.gov/programs/benviron/waste/pdf/pl0212rs.pdf -- and tested again in response to yet another baseless complaint. Levels of arsenic and lead were well below residential limits. http://www.torvex.com/jmcdaid/files/plf fr sampling final report[1].pdf.

I do not blindly trust developers or government agencies, but when a year of evidence accumulates, the burden of proof has shifted to the opponents. The facts show this project reduces the risk to our neighborhood from an uncapped landfill full of documented contaminants. http://www.dem.ri.gov/programs/benviron/waste/pdf/ottiano2.pdf

It is time for elected officials to stop pandering to the uninformed and misinformed: This group had a meeting with the Governor arranged, had their questions answered personally by the RIDEM Director, and had state legislators representing their point of view at Town Council meetings. Enough.

It's time for our legislators to stick up for the facts and the good of our community. And it's time for them to stick up for my son.

John G. McDaid
Portsmouth

copies:
Governor Lincoln Chafee
RIDEM Director Janet Coit
Senator Chris Ottiano
Senator Susan Sosnowski
Rep. Jay Edwards

Grading work at the corner of Park Ave and Mason in Island Park, Portsmouth.

This month, work on Portsmouth's old landfill in Island Park has reportedly reached the one-quarter completion mark, and recent tests of soil deliveries have shown no unacceptable levels of contaminants, according to sources at the RI Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM) and a spokesperson for the contractor.

The area along Park Ave between Boyd's Lane and Mason Ave has been fairly busy over the last month, with dump trucks bringing in soil several days a week as part of the ongoing effort to cap what was once a town dump, determined by RIDEM to have dangerous levels of contaminants.

The owner of the property, AP Enterprise, is working with Massachusetts remediation firm Site Restoration Technologies to execute the plan in the RIDEM-approved Beneficial Use Determination (BUD). According to RIDEM's Mark Dennen, who has been monitoring the process and conducting site inspections, the soil coming in on the trucks has all met appropriate standards.

"The vast majority of the soil brought to the site in the past month is from the Morton School Project in Fall River," Dennen said in an e-mail exchange. "This soil was tested by a third party for the full suite of contaminants; TPH, VOCs, SVOCs, PCBs and metals." (View results here.) Some additional soil came from a bridge project in Pawtucket, Dennen said, and he provided a link to those testing results as well.

Dennen also sent the most recent site report from a visit last month, as well as the results of an independent sample he took during the visit, which also showed acceptable levels of both arsenic and lead. The report shows that the arsenic level was 2.6 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg) which is less than half the residential limit of 7mg/kg, and lead came in at 15mg/kg, which is one-tenth the residential standard.

David Peter, a principal at Site Restoration Technologies, provided details on the project status in a phone interview. "It's about 25% done," said Peter, explaining that between 40 and 50 thousand tons of soil had already been brought in to the site. Peter said that they were "hoping to have it done this year," but that a variety of factors were slowing things down — notably, the impact of the recession on the construction industry (which would generate fill) and the inability to use the Sakonnet River Bridge. "We would probably be done by now if the Sakonnet River Bridge was done."

Peter said they had prioritized work to cap the southeast corner of the site, near the intersection of Park Ave and Mason — which is a school bus stop. "We are using our heads," he said. "That's the area of greatest potential impact." The plan, he said, was to get that section graded, capped with the required two feet of residential-grade fill, and planted with grass seed. "When people go to the beach, we don't want it to look like a construction site."

Editorial note: I have read all the questions raised with RIDEM by Larry Fitzmorris and Tom Casselman, and in addition to their puzzling charting style (numbers increase to the RIGHT on the X-axis, guys) and their questionable command of English (what, exactly, is an "expediential" relationship between two variables?) I find their arguments weak. I live just a couple of blocks from this site, so our family has skin in the game. Show me some data that says I should be worried, and I'm willing to be convinced. But in the meantime, I would like to ask our elected officials to stop pandering to opponents of this project.

The RI Department of Environmental Management (DEM) has scheduled a meeting to discuss work at the Island Park landfill on Tuesday, Jan. 18 at the Town Hall, according to an e-mail from Town Administrator Bob Driscoll.

"Anyone with questions/concerns should attend," said Driscoll.