The DEP has set up a hotline which residents can use to report any unusual odors in their neighborhood.
SOUTH HADLEY – Following complaints about a bad odor in the area of the landfill on Industrial Drive, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is working with South Hadley Landfill LLC to fix the problem.
“The most recent complaints are from a residential area north of the landfill,” said DEP spokeswoman Catherine Skiba, of the Western Massachusetts office in Springfield.
The problem has been going on for several weeks.
The DEP has set up a hotline which residents can use to report any unusual odors in their neighborhood. That number is (413) 493-8547.
Skiba urges callers to leave their addresses. The more specific they can be about the location of the smells, the more it helps investigators.
At this point, the culprit seems to be the gas collection system at the landfill.
Skiba said the DEP staff could detect the ordor at the landfill site but not when they were in the neighborhood.
“The operator of the landfill confirms that, and is investigating modifications to the existing gas collection system,” said Skiba.
At South Hadley’s Department of Public Works, Director James Reidy explained how gas collection works at the landfill. The gases emitted there, including methane, go into pipes that are buried in the perimeter of the landfill. A big blower sucks gas into these underground pipes.
It then pumps the gas into an “enclosed flare,” which looks like a silo from the outside. The enclosed flare has an open flame inside, and that’s where the gas is burned.
South Hadley Landfill LLC is a division of Interstate Waste Services.
Skiba said the current problem is not related to a similar problem the town had with landfill-based odors about five years ago.
At that time, the materials and the processes involved were different, and even the company that ran the landfill was different.