From July 26, 2001
Debate Over Brookfield Landfill
Brookfield landfill contains many hazardous chemicals according to the New York Times. Pesticides, chlorinated solvents, lead and cadmium fill the 272 acres that make up this land mass. Although the State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has plans to clean up this landfill, others believe this plan does not solve the underlying problem.
Ted Mrozinski, a retired environmental engineer, disagrees with the way the DEC has chosen to tackle this issue. The $86.7 million dollar plan will construct many devices within the landfill to stop the contaminated leakage. "First, it would be capped with a plastic liner covered with dirt. Then trenches and plastic barriers would funnel the tainted water into a treatment plant. Finally, the site's gases would be burned off." Mrozinski believes the Department must dig up the hazardous waste and move it somewhere else to prevent to migration of heavy metals into the water.
Although funding for this project is not yet finalized, the construction is still scheduled to begin in 2003. The Brookfield landfill has received $12 million of the total $60 million dollars that the Department of Environmental Conservation has collected from companies that illegally dumped their waste into five different city landfills.
Currently, the Brookfield
landfill leaks 95,000 gallons of contaminated water every day into the
groundwater and Richmond Creek. The Brookfield shut down in 1980 due to
the toxic chemicals that were illegally poured into the waste site from
1974 to 1980. The waste makes the landfill almost as much of a threat
to the environment as Fresh Kills, which closed with much fanfare in March.