Passions burn over Frederick County’s landfill policies

June 14--Dozens of firefighters and county landfill workers watched Friday afternoon as an excavator clawed hunks of trash out of a smoking tractor-trailer. With each scoop, soupy yellow-gray water gushed from the back of the truck.

Ashes, shingles, old mattresses and broken lumber were doused again as they were laid out in the parking lot of the county's waste transfer station.

This was exactly what the Division of Utilities and Solid Waste Management wants to avoid: another fire in the acre-sized building where trash is dumped in piles on the floor, then loaded on massive trailer haulers for disposal in Pennsylvania.

A March fire in one trailer spread to other waste on the transfer station's floor. Both fires were put out with no damage to the facility.

Landfill employees recently told a Frederick disaster restoration company, Service Master, to stop bringing charred refuse to the transfer station without meeting certain conditions. The county code prohibits dumping ashes at the facility.

A second company, J&J Trash Service of Frederick, recently complained about enforcement of out-of-county waste deposits at the landfill.

Republican County Council members Billy Shreve and Kirby Delauter say this is typical of Democratic County Executive Jan Gardner's "business-unfriendly" administration.

But Gardner said she supports county businesses, and reasonable and proper enforcement of laws gives the business community predictability and fairness.

Delauter has said recent decisions are part of why he might run for county executive in 2018.

Issues at the landfill were postponed from the council's agenda this week after J&J filed a letter that it might consider legal action.

Out-of-county trash

John Cavell, president of J&J, was excited this year when he nabbed a $220,000 contract with Lawrence Street Industries.

LSI, based in Hyattsville, culls through surplus federal government furniture at an English Muffin Way warehouse and processes it into resellable items, recyclables and waste, Cavell said. He was hired to haul away waste -- up to five or six roll-off dumpsters of it a day.

He bought a new truck ($200,000) and several new dumpsters ($24,000) for the contract. The truck now stays mostly parked in his lot.

In January, one of Cavell's trucks -- coming from the warehouse, which is used by the Department of Health and Human Services and its contractors, including LSI -- was turned away at the transfer station.

This type of disposal is explicitly prohibited at the landfill, said Kevin L. Demosky, director of the Division of Utilities and Solid Waste Management.

County code states that "only refuse which is collected within the confines of Frederick County shall be eligible for disposal in county-owned or controlled refuse disposal facilities."

Fort Detrick, one source of surplus furniture, is federal property and not considered part of the county.

In J&J's case, "the refuse (waste furniture) was collected outside Frederick County (either Fort Detrick or elsewhere) and because of this, the refuse (waste furniture) is prohibited from being disposed at the County Facility," Demosky wrote to the business.

But Cavell said that's splitting hairs -- and hurting business. He said the county loses revenue by denying part of his company's business.

Cavell doesn't see a difference between LSI's refuse and dumpsters from furniture, retail or warehouse businesses.

In a letter to the county, Cavell contested that most trash taken to the landfill did not originate in the county nor was it grown or manufactured here.

The county responded that those items did not originally come to the county as refuse, but as goods and products.

"With respect to the issues of 'other warehouse operations in Frederick Co. such as Walmart, Target and Costco' these County businesses are generating waste from products brought into the County for sale within the County, which is a completely different scenario from refuse (waste furniture) brought into the County to be disposed of," Demosky wrote.

Cavell sent the county attorney's office a Local Government Tort Claims Act notice this month, preserving the right to sue. Cavell said he doesn't want that route.

"The bottom line is if they let me access the landfill, no lawsuit is happening," he said. "I just want to do business in this county and take care of my customers."

Charred refuse

A separate county memo circulated last month details issues with burned debris at the landfill and waste transfer station.

Concerns about hot spots in county garbage dumps have heightened in the last seven years. In 2009, the county opened the indoor transfer station.

About 95 percent of waste in the county now moves through the station, to other dumping grounds, instead of going into the county's landfill. Between July and November, about 5 percent of refuse goes into an open landfill.

Demosky said the county accepts charred refuse when the landfill is open, but cannot risk moving ignitable embers around the transfer station building, which is filled with combustible dust.

"If it's brought to us and we're not confident it's been fully extinguished, it poses a significant fire hazard," Demosky said. "We're not running the risk of burning down an over $8 million building."

The cause of Friday's fire was unknown late Monday afternoon.

Demosky said the landfill has offered solutions, including accepting debris with documentation of how long the fire was extinguished.

"We have other companies we're working with on a case-by-case basis," said Phil Harris, superintendent of the Department of Solid Waste Management. "We're open for business."

But Doug Mascari, owner of a Service Master franchise in Frederick, contacted Delauter and Shreve after his dump trucks were denied at the landfill.

Insurance companies hire Mascari's business to haul fire and flood debris from damaged homes.

He's faced problems at the landfill for about six months, and now pays to have a separate company haul debris from work sites, Mascari said.

"I'm disappointed. I pay a lot of taxes. I moved my business out of Montgomery County to Frederick because I thought it was a more friendly place to do business," he said.

Mascari plans to attend the council's June 28 meeting about landfill issues.

Delauter said he thinks J&J and Service Master are complying with the law and the county's interpretation should change to accommodate them.

"You should be making it easier for people to do business and create jobs and bring in tax revenue," he said.

Gardner said her administration implemented an expansion of the county's small-business tax credit and business incubators, among other changes.

She said calling enforcement of rules "business unfriendly" is not right.

"The councilman who says that, is he interested in just not following the rules?" Gardner asked. "Then how do you have fairness ... if you're going to pick and choose who has to follow the rules?"

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