Fire suppression plan submitted for landfill

By Bob Downing
The Akron Beacon Journal

PIKE TWP - Additional capping over the next three to six years is the best way to extinguish fires at a major landfill in southern Stark County.

That's the proposal prepared for Republic Waste Services of Ohio for dealing with underground fires at its Countywide Recycling & Disposal Facility in Pike Township.

The 62-page fire-suppression plan was submitted late Friday to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and released today on the EPA's Web site.

The company faced a deadline today to submit its plan to the state under a March 28 negotiated agreement.

The EPA now must analyze the plan.

It is not known how long the EPA review will take and the agency does not intend to respond or comment on the company's proposal until the final orders are issued, said agency spokesman Mike Settles.

The plan, prepared by SCS Engineers and its Cincinnati office, calls for additional permanent capping of 88 acres of the landfill where aluminum wastes that came into contact with liquids triggered underground fires.

The additional capping would keep oxygen and liquids out of the landfill and that's the best way to proceed, SCS Engineers said.

No price tag is attached to the capping proposal, said Will Flower, a spokesman for Florida-based Republic Services, the parent company of the landfill.

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