Insanity to bury hazardougwaste over water supply

I have been following the issue

of proposed 811 infllhiois and the greaterpart of the Mid-

eapansion

of

the Peoria Disposal Company's

west, and one of only a few in the nation

. Many

hazardous waste landfill on the west edge

of

of themost toxic chemicals' are permitted to be

Peoria and attended PDC's presentation to

buried here and 15 states send

;•

them here,

the Peoria City Council last November

.

Themajority

of thesechemtealq are vote-

This landfill is the worst thing I have seen

tile, meaning they literally dissipate into the

in my 90

years in this community

I

say that

air webreathe. Yet there is no air pollution

without reservation. '

testing and this factor is being ignored

by

It is amazing that in this era of space

technology

we are building a mountain here

our government

leaking

of

of

a plastic

a

terriblycouple

into

liner

toxic

million

the

will

chemicals

aquifek

tons

forever

from

of

in

prevent

a

the

which

huge

belief

assortmentthem

over

thatfromhalf

.

dinosaursprograms,

even

this

If

wag

far

mankind

we

more

.

we

Of

are

must

keeps

on

the

going

caring

billions

spend

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we

the

much,

and

its

spend

waypreservingwasteindeed,

of

on

thespace

RECEIVED

CLERK

F~

:S CFFICE

of

the Peoria area's tap water is pumped

.

our space ship Earth . We have to find ways

PDCs

toxic waste landfill sits right over that ,

to detoxify and recycle all such waste_ it

isSTATE O F ILLINOIS

precious groundwater supply Plastic breaks

insanity

Pollution Control Board

can

and

Moreovez

eat

cracks

Into

it

with

and

is

age

the

through

and

only

stress,

ithazardous

and

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chemicalsland-

.

DAL RUTAERWRD SR

FORM PARK FOUNDATION

PEORIA HEUGINS I

SUNDAY

IANUAW 29.2Q06

.

JOUR SMA

Manito,

Harold

206 SheridanHerrmanIL

61546

B 0 5 2007

To

Whom This Concerns :

Four months after renown conservationist Bill

Rutherford, who died Nov

. 21, sent the above letter, the

Peoria County Board voted 12 to 6 notto

grant a permit to Peoria Disposal Co

. to expand its toxic waste

landfill here . That vote followed the largest and

longest (6 days)

public hearing in area history .

PDC is

appealing the county's permit denial to the

Illinois Pollution Control Board .

The

IPCB hearing

on the case was January

8, and it will accept citizen comment letters

though April 6! Let the IPCBknow

your views.

The letters will be posted on the

IPCB's web site. Yours

will count

. The address is :

f

uhinois Pollution Control Board, Clerk's Office,

Case 2006-184

100 W . Randolph St., Suite

11-500, Chicago, IL

60601

(Letters only

. E-mails not accepted)

Also, write or fax the

Journal Star .

The Situation :

4

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PDC's proposed expansion would triple

the volume of its toxic waste landfill, adding

2.2 milli 'ntons'W

40

acres on the top of its hilltop landfill

-- already

much higher than originally due to years of dumping

. It

would make that hill another

45 feet higher at least (5

stories), a superdome

of toxic waste considerably

higher than any other hill in the area, and covering

an area greater than Bradley U's campus .

Its contents,

from 15 states so far, would be encased in manmade

sidewalls of dirt lined with plastic membrane and

acked down by bulldozers

. Hardly a leakproof scenario .

PDC's is the only remaining commercial hazardous

waste landfill from Indianapolis to the Rocky Mts

.

in the

nation's upper half

. Such waste from a dozen states

is regularly brought here

. PDC has been operating

since 1940, but state toxic waste regulations didn't

begin until 1987 . And:

**The dump site sits above the shallow sand-gravel

aquifer from which most of the

Peoria area water supply

is drawn. Yet PDC's Illinois EPA permit

allows 843

of the nation's most toxic chemicals to be put there

--

but requires just quarterly tests for only

20 --

with PDC designating the day for EPA to take test samples

..

**This landfill has vents for

gaseous emissions

and is immediately upwind of Peoria

. But there is >Q testing

for air pollution, though research has revealed it

to be a major health issue around such landfills

elsewhere.

The federal "toxic release inventory" for Peoria

County is by far the highest in Illinois, 4 times

more than

Cook County's (Chicago), and 16th in the nation, according to the

2002 USEPA report

. It lists the PDC

toxic waste landfill as

releasing 21

times more than any other area source

.

Thia landfillis

a "forever" hazard . .

We needto

close it now with strictlv enforced

perpetual safeguards,

"

Tom Edwards,

River Rescue, 902 W . Moss An, Peoria,ll 61606

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