Town Must Cap Lincoln Avenue Landfill

Closed for more than 20 years, the Sayville Landfill is still a topic of conversation for officials at Islip Town Hall who are being pushed by New York State officials to cap the garbage dump located on Lincoln Avenue in Holbrook by 2013.

The landfill was first owned by the Town of Islip and ownership was then transferred to the Islip Resource Recovery Agency (IRRA), which is a public benefit corporation created to assist in the planning and the development of waste management facilities in the town and provides refuse and recyclable collection to approximately 1,300 homes in the town.

During a recent audit of the Town of Islip, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli included the landfill in his research and recommendations.

According to the audit, in 1986, the Town and the IRRA entered into an Order of Consent with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) to provide a plan for the final closure of the landfill in accordance with applicable regulations. Correspondence between the NYSDEC and the town has been ongoing since 1986, with amendments and updates to the plan.

The town has requested postponements for the landfill's closure with the cost to cap it currently estimated at $16 million.

This amount includes $10.7 million for closure, capping and preparation of maintenance plan costs and an additional $5.6 million for ongoing post-closure care and monitoring for a period of 30 years after the closure is complete.

In November 2008, the NYSDEC declined the town's request to postpone the project for another 10 years, but granted a three-year extension. NYSDEC now requires that a contract for closing the landfill be awarded by March 2012 and the required closure certification be completed by February 2013.

NYSDEC also indicated that until the capping project is complete, "groundwater will continue to be contaminated because various chemicals are leaching out of the facility," according to the audit report.

According to Christopher Andrade, Town of Islip Commissioner of DEC and president of the IRRA, "the landfill has not significantly impacted the groundwater in the vicinity of the Landfill."

Andrade also said that the wells have been tested semi-annually for about three years and are strictly monitored in accordance to a monitoring plan by the H2M Group, an architecture and engineering firm located in Melville.

Data to backup each claim was not immediately available.

The capping process, according to Andrade, would involve a geo-synthetic liner being placed over the entire landmass after it was graded to prevent any water intrusion. "Final vegetative cover is placed over the cap and typical vegetation similar to what is indigenous to the area is planted," he said.

When asked where the funds would come from for this project Andrade said, "Islip taxpayers, however the state, in the past, has funded projects up to 80 percent of the total cost."

Town of Islip Supervisor Phil Nolan is confident that the town will come up with a plan by the 2012 deadline and said that "IRRA is responsible for covering the cost of capping the landfill."

The audit offered the town recommendations in regard to the landfill including developing a plan to eliminate the deficit in the capital projects plan and working with the IRRA to ensure that the closure of the landfill is completed in accordance with NYSDEC's regulations.