Concerns spur DNR meeting on Advance landfarm

ADVANCE, Mo. -- The Missouri Department of Natural Resources is seeking public comment about concerns over a landfarm currently operating near Advance.

A landfarm is a facility in which soil contaminated with fuel chemicals is stored and cleaned through natural processes. Poplar Bluff, Mo.-based Smith and Company Inc. operates a landfarm near Advance, and the site's permit to discharge water into a local stream is up for renewal, a process that includes public input. The facility has been in operation since 2001.

The public meeting will be from 5:30 to 7 p.m. March 22 at the Dexter Chamber of Commerce in Dexter, Mo. Last week DNR said the meeting is in response to "public concerns that have been raised about the landfarm and the suitability of the location for this type of facility."

Smith and Company president Paul Ridlen said he is aware of the concerns. A person living near the site has been opposed to its operation from the beginning, Ridlen said, and he understands those concerns.

"DNR wants to address them, as do we," Ridlen said. "We're very interested in addressing the concerns that anyone has. We like to operate things on an aboveboard, up and up manner, and we feel like this is a fairly routine public proceeding."

Refaat Mefrakis, permitting chief for DNR, said this kind of public input only recently became part of the process. Before last year companies operating landfarms obtained statewide permits that did not require a public notice and input period. Now the process has changed to allow more public participation, Mefrakis said.

Landfarms come in two forms -- on-site and off-site. An on-site landfarm is created at a site where fuel has contaminated soil, such as a pumping station where a tank leak has occurred. Off-site landfarms, like the Smith and Company farm near Advance, bring in contaminated soil to clean it.

The soil at the farms is lined with thick plastic, like liners found at landfills, to prevent chemicals from leaching into the water supply. Bacterial processes work in tandem with light to break down the chemicals found in the contaminated soil. Cleaned soil can then be removed and used for limited purposes.

The permit Smith and Company seeks allows water collected from the 1-acre landfarm to be discharged into a local stream, an unnamed tributary of Wolf Creek. Under the permit, water discharged by Smith and Company must meet government standards on maximum contaminant levels. The water is tested once a month.

Water collection occurs in a storm-water retention basin. The water must meet safety standards before it can be discharged.

Mefrakis didn't know the specifics of concerns in this particular case, but said concerns typically deal with water quality in the streams in which water is discharged.

Ridlen said landfarm facilities are regulated "very tightly" by the state, similar to the way wastewater treatment plants are regulated.

Right now the facility cannot discharge any water until the permit is approved, Ridlen said. DNR is expected to grant or deny the application in April.

Landfarms can sell their dirt for limited purposes, Ridlen said, but Smith and Company retains its dirt to build up the levee that protects runoff from entering the nearby stream and to raise the farm's grade. The farm is elevated above the floodplain, Ridlen said. The 1-acre landfarm sits on 6 acres owned by the company. Mefrakis said Smith and Company's farm is one of "only a handful" of landfarms in Missouri.

msanders@semissourian.com

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