Smoke and fires, bad smell and trash: Kansans say state fails to regulate landfill
Howard Crook worries about what his son and young grandchildren are breathing in when a landfill dispels a putrid smell around Easton, a rural town in northeast Kansas.
The Flat Land site in Leavenworth County, about 45 miles from Kansas City, has been the subject of dozens of complaints. When a large fire broke out last year, nearby neighbors wondered if the surrounding air and water were safe. Over a year later, spots at the landfill continue to smolder, leaving the violation unresolved, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
Several residents as well as local leaders say the state agency has failed to protect their health and the environment. Air quality testing was not conducted until February and no water testing has been carried out.
“It’s just becoming ridiculous that we have to fight this battle when KDHE ought to be fighting it for us or with us,” Crook said during an interview last month where he looked over photos of a massive mound strewn with trash.
The landfill sits atop a hill on the outskirts of the town, which is too small for a stoplight but has two churches, a bank, post office, and bar and grill.
The owners of the landfill, Shawn and Christina Britz, were granted a special use permit to operate the business in a residential zone.
Since they took over the landfill in 2019, officials have fielded dozens of complaints: increased truck traffic, litter escaping from uncovered trucks and from the site, and operating outside permitted hours. KDHE has identified several problems including unauthorized waste, failure to screen waste and mass instability at one of the slopes that rose nearly 50 feet and was nearly vertical. The company was fined more than $6,000 in January for these violations.
And then there’s the stench.
Chris Keller has retched at the odor intruding where the landfill abuts his property.
Down the road, Kara Luginbill-Smith, who worked as a contractor in the Middle East, said the smell reminds her of the burn pits of Iraq.
Leavenworth County Commissioners Mike Stieben and Jeff Culbertson have joined the residents’ pleas for oversight by KDHE, but have come away frustrated.
“The really scary thing to me — and you look at all these things around the country that are going on — the real concern is we all think that we have a minimum level of environmental protection in this country,” Stieben said. “But when we get to an issue like this, we see that many times that just falls apart. We don’t seem to have the protections that we thought we had.”
Facing questions from a Kansas House committee, deputy environment secretary Leo Henning told legislators that the owners just need until the summer to fix the ongoing smoldering.
Rep. Lance Neelly, a Republican who represents the area, came to the landfill’s defense, telling the committee that landfill fires are not unusual and they can take a long time to put out.
Shawn Britz understands why a landfill would not be met with a warm welcome, but he said the business has contributed to the area with taxes and and about nine jobs. During a tour of the facility last month, he told The Star he feels targeted by the residents and some county officials. He also said he does not have any environmental or safety concerns with the landfill. If he did, he would not let his children, who are frequently at the site, visit.
But many remain unconvinced. Sen. Jeff Pittman, a Democrat who represents the Leavenworth area, said the landfill was a problem.
“I don’t know what the answer is, but it’s not just turning the other cheek,” he said.
Residents also worry about a proposal put forth by Flat Land that would allow the company to expand.
“Intake numbers historically have grown yearly and we plan to continue to solicit new business,” the plan said, noting that it took in up to one million pounds of material a week.
‘Clearly in violation’
For many years, the landfill operated with few problems.
After the previous owner went bankrupt, the Britzes purchased the site. The area is a residential zone, but the county commission approved a 10-year special use permit for them in May 2019. The agreement allows the landfill to haul in construction and demolition materials and requires the owners to abide by state regulations.
Shortly thereafter, Sharon Wagner started noticing more and more trucks heading for the dump which “turned into a huge pile of trash.”
The landfill is visible from her front porch. Wagner said the debris was supposed to be covered, but wasn’t. Trash was flying onto her land.
“My tree out here was full of trash bags,” she said.
The smell, at times, is “potent,” she added.
Wagner and others began calling the county commission and KDHE with their concerns, saying the company was violating the permit’s hours of operations and taking in household trash that was not allowed. Photos from the site show everything from a mattress to trash bins and bags of livestock feed. The volume was considerably more than it had been under previous owners. Nearby neighbors were also concerned about the possibility of asbestos being dumped in the landfill, which is allowed to accept a certain type of the material.
The commission and other city officials heard out the complaints which by March 2021, were coming in nearly daily, according to a planning commission report. Residents reported untarped loads on the roads, excessive traffic, inadequate screening of what was coming into the site and substantial litter near the landfill.
“It was clearly in violation,” Stieben said.
On Feb. 10, 2022, the county issued a cease and desist order to temporarily close down the business.
They also reached out to KDHE for help. That day, an inspector visited the landfill. The inspector reported unauthorized waste including tires, a gigantic mound rising nearly 50 feet which was collapsing in one part and waste that was not properly compacted. Flat Land was sent a notice of non-compliance.
Where there’s smoke...
Just days later, on Feb. 22, 2022, Crook stared from his property towards the landfill, where bright orange flames had broken out and spread.
“It was like something I’d never seen,” he said. “It lit up the sky.”
Several area fire districts responded to put out the blaze.
Zack Pistora, a lobbyist with the Kansas Sierra Club, said the fire exacerbated the longstanding concerns.
“Those materials combust, you have treated lumber, foams and plastics and other types of materials that catch on fire produce really harmful environmental emissions and people were smelling that and facing respiratory harm,” he said. “So it’s just too bad that a community would have to endure that without environmental protections in place.”
KDHE did not send anyone, saying it was not standard protocol for its staff to respond to a fire. The agency conducted an inspection on March 3, 2022. The violations had been corrected, KDHE ruled.
Soon thereafter, Flat Land sued the county commission over the cease and desist order.
They reopened as litigation continued, but problems resurfaced.
After the fire, Wagner said she called KDHE multiple times with questions.
“Who is supposed to ensure that the air quality is OK for people to be in, that the water runoff is OK?” she asked.
According to Wagner, the state said the air was fine, but provided no documentation.
In October, Luginbill-Smith contacted the county and KDHE officials saying the smell had been horrendous.
“What are we breathing??” she wrote. “Action needs taken. Please do the right thing and choose Easton health over Flatlands wealth.”
Henning, with KDHE, told state legislators during the February hearing that the agency does not regulate odors. Kansas administrative regulations, however, include guidelines on odors. Adequate control of odors is listed on landfill inspection reports. KDHE did not respond to requests to interview Henning.
After two inspections, KDHE outlined nine issues including “odors consistent with hydrogen sulfide” and seven areas that continued to smolder from the fire. The gas often smells like rotten eggs.
Testing was conducted in February. Luginbill-Smith said it was “not acceptable” to have waited a year after the fire for air monitoring.
The results “showed no exceedances of landfill gas action levels established in Kansas Solid Waste Regulations,” KDHE spokesman Matthew Lara said.
According to a revised report with additional information from the testing company requested by KDHE, hydrogen sulfide was detected at over one part per million in two locations, but was close to the ground and “not observed in the breathing zone.” The report recommended having a gas detection device for personnel working in that area. A follow up test is also planned, Lara said.
Information issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration indicated that the gas emits the rotten egg smell at 0.01 to 1.5 ppm. At two to five ppm, prolonged exposure may cause nausea and headaches as well as airway problems for some asthma patients. The gas becomes deadly around 100 ppm.
Douglas Mose, who owns an environmental testing company based in Fairfax, Virginia, said the risk associated with these chemicals varies person to person and by the length of time someone is exposed.
“What is an acceptable amount for ‘most people’ during a brief exposure versus a long time?” he asked.
Crook, who began using an inhaler for asthma earlier this year, said he doesn’t think the disease was caused by the landfill, but that it can exacerbate his symptoms.
Stieben said where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
“I think our real concern is that KDHE rules and regulations require all fire and smoldering to be fully extinguished,” he said. “That’s the rules. That has never happened.”
KDHE directed Flat Land to develop a fire mitigation plan which was submitted and approved, Lara said. But because smoldering continues, “this violation is considered outstanding.”
In January, Flat Land was fined $6,250 by KDHE. A 15-page order outlined the history of problems: the large fire, smaller fires, ongoing reports of smoke and smoldering, unauthorized waste and “strong odors associated with excessive landfill gas.”
The letter said the landfill’s “violations threaten or cause pollution and/or pose a hazard to public health and safety or the environment.”
Recent developments
During a March 23 tour of the landfill, trucks drove in and out of the entrance to a screening area as excavators made their way across the site filled with roofing materials, bricks and lumber. A massive sloping mound was covered with a layer of brown dirt. A slight smell, which Britz guessed was disintegrating Sheetrock, wafted from the area.
In the past month or so, Britz said he has spotted five smoldering areas. Those are dug up and a slurry is applied to snuff out the smoke.
Earlier this year, many residents were outraged when the county agreed to pay a $200,000 settlement to Flat Land to end the lawsuit over the cease and desist order.
The parties also signed a new memorandum of understanding, intended to “clarify and resolve ambiguities regarding Flat Land’s Special Use Permit,” which remains in effect. The MOU stipulated that a containment area be placed below the site to catch runoff, a fire barrier be placed around the debris and that the company continue odor mitigation efforts.
Britz said many of the MOU’s requirements had been addressed.
He acknowledged that no one wants a landfill close to their home, but said that he and his employees have worked to make improvements, even offering to shift the location of the site so it is less visible. Problems like the large, uncovered mound of trash or windblown litter have cropped up only under rare circumstances like when one of their compacting machines was broken on a particularly busy day or when there was a severe wind storm, he said.
Britz believes a lot of the strife between him and his neighbors was “driven by hate.” In his view, he and his family, who live in Platte City, are seen as outsiders.
The company, he said, contributes a lot in taxes to Leavenworth County and he views the landfill as a business to hand down to his three children, who range in age from 12 to 18. One of his sons works at the landfill.
But Crook and other residents say their worries continue. Though thousands of gallons of water was doused onto the landfill to extinguish the fire, KDHE has never collected water samples for testing.
“I think it should have been done a long time ago,” Crook said, adding that Stranger Creek runs about a quarter-mile away and flows south into the Kansas River.
Mose said fires tend to speed up chemical reactions or create new compounds which in some cases are more toxic. He recommended soil and water testing.
Flat Land’s water pollution control permit stipulates that water not runoff from the site but seep into the landfill. In January, an inspector noted a breach in a containment area used for holding potentially contaminated water and instructed Flat Land to repair the berm.
“KDHE staff have not observed water that has been in contact with waste running off-site,” Lara said.
Residents are also concerned about expansion. The landfill sits on about 38 acres of property. According to Leavenworth County property records, Flat Land owns more than 230 acres. In an annexation proposal, the company said they hope to grow and that moving under Easton’s control would be financially beneficial for the small town.
Many of the residents say the county commission has tried to help them, but are constrained by KDHE. After the MOU was signed in January, the department sent a letter saying, “KDHE maintains ultimate authority concerning any determination of the Facility’s compliance, with, and enforcement of, all state solid waste laws.”
“It all reverts back to KDHE’s in charge,” Crook said. “And that is where your county commissioners are hitting a rock wall.”
He said the landfill had “ violation after violation after violation,” and wanted to know at what point they would be shut down.
According to KDHE, the landfill has met its required conditions.
“Ordering a facility to cease operations is a significant action that the agency would only consider if all other options to correct violations have been ineffective or, in extreme circumstances, when an imminent threat to public health or the environment can be proved,” Lara said.
Stieben, the county commissioner, said he thinks “the state of Kansas is forming a circular firing squad as far as being able to regulate this landfill.”
“KDHE is completely abdicating their responsibilities.”
This story was originally published April 4, 2023 at 12:08 PM.
