Is it a fire? EPA needs to know
PIKE TWP - Could fire and a chemical reaction be mistaken for each other in an infrared image? We have no idea. Neither, apparently, does the Ohio EPA. But the agency wants to know — welcome news for residents who can’t escape the odor coming from the Countywide landfill in Pike Township.
The nasty smell that residents have put up with for months and months has been blamed on a chemical reaction involving decomposition of buried aluminum waste. But a pilot from Kent who made infrared pictures of the site in August and December thinks the problem might be the result of an underground fire, and a fire that is growing.
In response to this possibility, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has arranged for an expert on landfill fires to inspect Countywide within the next few weeks.
Landfill officials may not be happy with this turn of events, but the EPA’s decision follows a prudent course.
There is always more to learn about landfills. In their vast expanses, buried substances may or may not always be what landfill operators are led to believe they are, and substances can combine in unexpected ways.
What the EPA learns from the Countywide situation can be of help at other landfills as well as here.
Certainly the EPA wants to know if landfill officials should be trying to extinguish a fire instead of trying to neutralize a chemical reaction.
Not only that, but regardless of the source, EPA — and residents around the landfill — will want to know if pilot Larry R. Davis is right when he says the heat source he photographed is growing.
