Judge Rejects Deal To Recycle Landfill

TACOMA - A federal judge has thrown a monkey wrench into the $24 million cleanup of the Tacoma landfill by refusing to approve an agreement between Tacoma Refuse Utility and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

City officials and EPA attorneys are scrambling to figure out their next move, though the city's project manager vows that construction to line and cap the seriously contaminated landfill will continue.

In an order filed Monday, U.S. District Judge Jack Tanner refused to approve a consent decree that outlined the terms of the cleanup, saying the EPA had ``arbitrarily and capriciously'' ignored some of its own guidelines in the agreement. The state Department of Ecology also participated in the agreement.

Tanner made the ruling after lawyers representing residents of two apartment buildings on the northeast border of the landfill intervened in the case, complaining that the city and regulatory agencies had ignored their concerns during a public-comment period. In effect, Tanner is asking the parties to address those concerns.

The 30-year-old landfill straddles the Tacoma-Fircrest border between South 31st Street and South 48th Street. In 1983, the EPA discovered that the landfill had contaminated local ground water and private wells.

Loren Dunn, a Seattle attorney representing the owners of the Overlook Rim and Nob Hill apartments, said the owners and residents objected because the city refused to do an environmental-impact statement - which would have examined various alternatives for cleanup - and because they believed the material the city chose to cap the landfill won't hold in hazardous chemicals.

The landfill is packed to the limit with garbage, but the refuse utility wants to increase capacity vertically, preventing the release of leachate by building a special plastic liner. Portions of the landfill are being capped with impermeable material to keep leachate from escaping.

The residents represented by Dunn have complained of noise, methane gas and dust in their homes since work on the cleanup started earlier this year. They have filed a separate lawsuit against the city seeking damages.

Dunn argued before Tanner that the synthetic material the city and the EPA had agreed on was vulnerable to leakage, and that the EPA's own guidelines recommended using a layer of clay instead.

Thair Jorgenson, project manager for the Tacoma Refuse Utility, said city and EPA engineers had determined the less-expensive synthetic material would provide adequate protection.

The city has been working on the cleanup throughout the summer, even though the consent decree had not been approved. Jorgenson said the city has committed $15 million to contractors now capping a third of the 190-acre site.

``It would be devastating for us to stop now,'' he said.

Jorgenson said an interim agreement signed by Tanner, the city and the regulatory agencies allows work to go on while the consent decree - which seals the terms of cleanup - is completed.

Dunn argues, however, that the city has gone beyond the scope of that agreement, which he says allows only preparatory work, not actual cleanup.

Meanwhile, attorneys are haggling over how to change Tanner's mind. Andrew Boyd, assistant regional counsel at the EPA's Seattle office, said the agency either will appeal Tanner's ruling, modify the agreement or negotiate a new one.

Jorgenson accused Dunn of intervening in the consent decree to gain leverage for the civil suit in Pierce County Superior Court.