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JP Council demands plan to shut down landfill giving off foul odor

A decision by the Yenni administration to start accepting liquid industrial waste last year may have actually kicked off the worst of the odor problem.

METAIRIE -- Angry residents and members of the Jefferson Parish Council blasted Mike Yenni’s administration for allowing liquid industrial waste at the parish landfill in Waggaman and for allowing noxious gases, including dangerous hydrogen sulfide, to leak from collection wells there.

Yenni said he heard the anger and concern of residents and would work quickly and closely with the council to resolve the problem. Meanwhile, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Chuck Carr Brown said the problem “would get worse before it gets better.”

“We identified the problem, we’re addressing the problem, it’s just going to take time to resolve it,” Brown said.

With that in mind, the parish councilman from the district where the landfill is located, Mark Spears, asked about possibly closing the landfill until the leaks could be fixed.

“There are pros and cons,” Brown said. “Pros is you’ll have all your resources focused on solving the problem. One of the potential cons is you may not have an alternative for your waste.”

The council voted to direct the Yenni administration to come up with a plan for potentially closing the landfill temporarily and to lay out the remediation plans by Aug. 29.

About 150 residents came to the special Jefferson Parish Council meeting, even though it was held in the middle of the afternoon. Many of them were angry the parish has allowed high levels of hydrogen sulfide to leak from the landfill.

Brown said LDEQ had measured an average of 14 parts per billion of hydrogen sulfide in the air in Waggaman, the community closest to the landfill. That’s an average over 8 hours, and it’s well below the legal limit of 237 parts per billion. But DEQ also acknowledged hydrogen sulfide levels had spiked to as high as 200 parts per billion on the landfill site on Thursday.

Residents of Harahan, River Ridge and Waggaman say their persistence is what forced parish officials to acknowledge their role in the mess.

“But for what we have done as a community, we would never have figured out where the source of the smell was coming from,” said Seth Schaumburg, an area resident who has filed a class-action lawsuit against the parish.

Now, those resident groups are keeping the pressure on as the issue becomes a political football.

Yenni tried last month to blame his predecessor, John Young, a potential opponent in next year's election. But it turned out a decision by the Yenni administration to start accepting liquid industrial waste last year may have actually kicked off the worst of the odor problem.

“The residents of River Ridge and Harahan started smelling the odors probably about the beginning of August last year,” Schaumburg said. “Which is the same time the Jefferson Parish landfill started accepting industrial waste.”

Confronted about that decision to accept the liquid industrial waste that a neighboring landfill, River Birch, had decided to reject in early 2017, Yenni’s top aide, Chief Operating Officer Keith Conley, said he didn’t know who had approved the modification to the parish’s waste permits.

“My understanding is that in order to take liquid industrial waste required an amendment to the parish's permit on the landfill. Is that correct?” Councilman Chris Roberts asked Conley.

“That's my understanding also. I believe the parish did, but the parish attorney's office is looking into it.”

Residents booed Conley’s suggestion that the Yenni administration didn’t know who approved the modification. Shortly thereafter, resident Mike Bowler came to the microphone and held up an image on his cell phone of the permit modification, signed by Conley himself in February 2016.

WWL-TV obtained a copy of the document, entitled Modification No. 7, from March 2016. On page 3, Conley signs as COO on Yenni's behalf.

WWL-TV obtained a copy of the document, entitled Modification No. 7, from March 2016. On page 3, Conley signs as COO on Yenni’s behalf.

Conley told WWL-TV that permit modification was only for converting liquid waste into solid waste and they are still looking for other documents for accepting liquid industrial waste.

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