Putnam Co. landfill owners say they offered to take hazardous waste from Ohio train derailment
toxic ray waste from the train derailment in Ohio is coming here to Indiana. Our Rachel Wilkerson found state and local officials seemed surprised by this, including Governor Eric Holcomb, who isn't happy about the EPA's decision that was being transported from East Palestine, Ohio to near Rochdale, Indiana, which is in Putnam County. In fact, it's coming to this landfill owned by a company called Heritage Environmental Services. We received questions from nearby residents who have safety concerns with the waste being kept here. So I went to the landfill in Putnam County and got answers about what this means for you. I don't know if anybody in the community knows what to look for if there is some kind of containment issue or leak. The Heritage Environment landfill in Putnam County has a Rochdale address, but is located around seven and a half miles from town, according to the council, the executive vice president of the facility, Aliyah Lavey says around 2000 tons of toxic waste from the Ohio trained around it will soon be disposed here.
The material that's destined for here is soil that's contaminated with low levels of butylacrylate. That's a chemical that's an ingredient in things like paint, caulk, sealants, very common ubiquitous chemical. There's also trace levels of other material in there such as the vinyl chloride. So just to give a little bit of context, the vinyl chloride I think is the material that's garnered the most attention in this as a result of this event. He says those toxic chemicals are no different than chemicals that have been disposed on site since 1981. So it's well below. Uh, you know, any levels of concern well below what the level of which we can we can receive the material.
The shipment is expected within a day or two. Alavi says contaminated water will not be disposed here, but only contaminated soil. Residents are concerned that the toxins will leak into nearby creeks or in the community. You don't have any control over anything like this, and there's not a lot of information. We don't know what to expect. What is your message to residents just to make sure that none of these toxic chemicals make it into system? So that's part of the reason we have the groundwater monitoring wells. So when we test those in the county itself has a representative that comes out quarterly in pool samples also to confirm that there's no contaminants exiting the landfill into the groundwater supply that could potentially get into the creek.
On site manager Eric Chris says the facility is under strict federal guidelines. He says if the toxic waste was to leak, they would be notified. Landfill itself has a dual liner system, synthetic liners to capture any leachate from rainwater that would percolate through with also a leak detection system in between these dual liner system. We also have monitoring wells installed around the entire facility. So a lot of concerns here and warranted concerns here and Rachel, this news, you know, it came as surprise to a lot of local officials and residents as we saw there. That's because the owners of the landfill actually reached out to the EPA and offered to dispose of the toxic chemicals. It was a business deal.
Heritage environmental tells me that they negotiated what they would and wouldn't accept and signed a contract. I asked how long is this contract and I was told that information wouldn't be released at this time. And I know Rachel, there is some concern about the water, whether these toxic chemicals could end up in the water. So what is that facility doing to ensure that doesn't happen? There is the on site manager says that they are confident that they can handle this load. He says that they're doing testing as needed. All right, Rachel Wilkerson digging into questions tonight. We will continue to follow this story.
We'll ask the questions that are important to you. We have posted everything that we know so far about the hazardous waste coming to Indiana. That's up for you right now. W R T V dot com and on the W R T V app.
east palestine, indiana, norfolk southern, putnam county, roachdale, toxic waste, train derailment