Buffalo Grove landfill gets clean bill of health from inspectors

The former Land & Lakes landfill in Buffalo Grove has been given a clean bill of health by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency inspectors. But Buffalo Grove Trustee Lisa Stone still scents something suspicious about the transfer station and composting facility that exists in its place at the Rivers Edge Landscape Waste Facility, 1300 Milwaukee Ave. Stone was supposed to meet with U.S. EPA officials Monday afternoon. Since late last year, she has been following up on complaints from neighboring businesses about odors from the site, involving such agencies as the Illinois EPA and Lake County. But a letter from Mary Margaret Cowhey, vice president of the Land & Lakes Co., which operates the facility, informed the village, "The EPA completed its inquiry and found no issues with the site."

Stone confirmed she had received an e-mail from a federal EPA agent, Paul Ruesch, on Sunday. The e-mail stated, "At this point, I do not believe it is necessary to meet with you to discuss this matter further. Should your constituents experience further nuisance odors from this site, please advise them to contact the Lake County Health Department at (847) 377-8020, or U.S. EPA Region 5 at (800) 621-8431 or online at epa.gov/compliance/complaints/index.html."

Ruesch said the agency had obtained and reviewed the latest round of groundwater monitoring data from January 2010 and did not find "levels of constituents of regulatory concern in the results. We have no reason to suspect that there are any discrepancies or inconsistencies in this data."

Stone said in an e-mail that she thanked the agency for the good news. She added, "My understanding is that they did not take any samples from water wells, but looked over the data of past tests. I have asked them to confirm if they at any point did their own sampling."

She also said she found it curious how Cowhey had been apprised of the meeting and the quickness with which Cowhey was informed of its cancellation.

And she expressed disappointment that the meeting was canceled, as she had wanted to bring up her concern about "aspergillus fumigatus spores, found at composting sites and their impact on human lungs." She cited the American Lung Association of Chicago's concern about this in 1997 involving a 3-acre composting site. The Land & Lakes facility is the largest composting site in Lake County, with a capacity of 27 acres, she has said.

According to Mike Kuhn of the Lake County Health Department, Land & Lakes voluntarily stopped taking leaves and grass for composting in 2005. He said they did not compost again until late 2008, when they had one windrow on site. In the fall of 2009, they resumed composting leaves, but not grass. They were also transferring brush and grass off-site, Kuhn said.

During the period when no composting was being done, the property was annexed to the village with the intent of redeveloping it, at which time a Land & Lakes official said they didn't compost there and cited the issue of odors as a reason composting wasn't done there.

Stone asked in an e-mail to village officials Tuesday afternoon that the board consider amending the annexation agreement at its Monday, March 22, meeting to disallow composting, which currently is a legal, non-conforming use.

Among those who have complained to Stone about odors was Carl Lang of Affinity Healthcare, who said in an e-mail, "Since moving into our new facility at 1450 Busch Parkway, we have received numerous complaints from both patients and employees regarding the obnoxious odor that permeates into the building. Several times employees have asked to go home early, because they feel ill after being exposed - and I strongly believe it has had a detrimental effect on patients with respiratory conditions, including COPD and asthma. We have been forced to install numerous air fresheners throughout the building, although they have limited benefit.

"Although we built an outside area for our staff with tables and chairs on the west side of the building, most days it was unusable due to the dreadful odor."