Action needed to simplify and implement new C&DD laws

Director of the Ohio EPA and JCAR Committee Members,
The purpose of this message is to request quick implementation of the new House Bill 397 changes into the Ohio EPA's Chapter 3745-500 rules.

I attended the focus group meeting on April 30th in Columbus Ohio hosted by Joany Snider and Scott Heidenreich of the Ohio EPA. People attending included landfill operators, lawyers, designers, consultants, health board representatives, and citizens groups. As you know, the purpose of the meeting was to review the "organization" of the documents that apply to existing landfills that do not expand their limits of debris placement. These documents are being revised and reorganized in order to incorporate the new requirements due to House Bill 397 which passed in December 2006.

Joany Snider reviewed the current proposal of Chapter 3745-400 rules, and the possible changes they might make. The meeting was scheduled from 10:00 AM until 4:00 PM, and the first portion of the meeting was taken up with comments from different representatives about the complexity of the rules. They commented about "references" to other supporting documents, and then "references" in the supporting documents to yet a third document. Scott Heidenreich told me that the Ohio EPA is trying their best to limit references to two jumps maximum.

The most comments came from the landfill operators, lawyers, and designers; they spent the first 90 minutes of the meeting complaining. They want to have a separate document for every type of landfill that exists. The landfill designers and lawyers said putting everything into the same package would create an unnecessary burden for them. But when I listened to them speak, it was clear to me that they are very intelligent people; they should be more than capable of understanding and abiding by the Chapter 3745-500 rules.

It makes me wonder if the landfill operators, lawyers, and designers are just trying to stall the implementation of the rules to keep from having to comply with the additional requirements from House Bill 397. I think it would be simpler, and lead to a quicker implementation, if the same specification was used for all the C&DD landfills. The Program Chapter 3745-500 with references to the new Multi-Program (MP) Chapters should work just fine.

I was told that less than 10% of the 70 plus existing landfills in Ohio will not expand. It does not make any sense to me that the Ohio EPA should do all that extra work required in order to have a separate document for such a small group of landfill owners.

Please implement the regulations from House Bill 397 into the EPA's Program Chapter 3745-500 with the new Multi-Program (MP) Chapters as soon as possible. The new requirements from HB 397 will improve the environment, and the health of the citizens of Ohio.

Sincerely,
Richard Natoli
Member, Girard United Against Ruinous Dumping (G.U.A.R.D.)