JOHNSTON, R.I. — It wasn’t that long ago that the state’s landfill had a bad name and a worse smell.

The Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC), the quasi-public state agency that owns and operates the centralized trash and recycling facilities off Shun Pike, lost or settled a series of lawsuits in the 2010s aiming at bringing toxic smells related to the corporation’s operations to heel.

In 2013 RIRRC and vendor Broadrock Renewables, a contractor that collected landfill gases on-site for fuel in its power facility, settled with the town for $6 million over unregulated toxic smells and emission pollution released by the landfill since 2011. Some 4,000 people live within 3 miles of the landfill. The town used the money to build a $3.3 million athletic complex, buy playground equipment, laptop purchases, and updated fire alarm systems.

Not long after, the Conservation Law Foundation sued RIRRC, alleging the landfill operator allowed harmful gases to escape into the atmosphere, in violation of the federal Clean Air Act and other environmental regulations. Also named in the lawsuit was Broadrock and Rhode Island LFG Genco, a company that burns the gas to generate electricity.

RIRRC and the companies settled with CLF in early 2016, but this settlement required the parties to step up their emissions and air quality monitoring and improve gas collection in the landfill. The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management was also required to issue RIRRC a Clean Air Act operating permit.

RIRRC and Broadrock had to pay CLF $350,000 each, for a total of $700,000, with $225,000 going toward attorneys’ fees. The two had to pay $25,000 to hire a consultant to recommend improvements to the gas system, and use the remaining $450,000 to implement the recommendations.

The first time RIRRC was sued over escaping gas was in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency sued and settled with RIRRC after an EPA investigation in the late 1990s showed the landfill was failing to control landfill gas and emissions.

But so far, no DEM permit has been issued, and the community air monitoring ceased sometime in early 2022. The air monitoring webpage, created so the public can access the latest data from six ambient air monitoring sensors, is no longer accessible from the RIRRC website.

An archived version of the page, accessible via the Internet Archive, shows the last time data was updated on the six air monitor sites was Nov. 30, 2021.

Jared Rhodes, director of policy and programs for RIRRC, told ecoRI News that landfill gas monitoring had been consolidated into a single program that alerts all parties of any exceedances, and that landfill emissions, despite the community monitoring site not being updated, were still monitored from within RIRRC’s facility.

“Gas emissions are regularly monitored on the surface of the landfill itself,” Rhodes wrote in an email to ecoRI news. “The referenced network of community-based monitoring stations has been deployed and put into operation. This network is currently offline; however, work to bring it back is underway.”

Rhode Island’s Central Landfill receives 90% of all municipal solid waste generated in the state. Outside of gas emissions, it’s one of the state’s notable Superfund sites, thanks to operators of the site back in the 1970s disposing of industrial liquid waste, around 1.5 million gallons of documented hazardous waste.

It’s known to be contaminated with latex waste, acid waste, corrosive waste, water soluble oils, and water solvents such as methylene chloride, toluene, 1,1,1-trichlorethane, and tetrachloroethylene, impacting the bedrock aquifer underlying the landfill site. It has been remediated using a hydraulic containment system and ground treatment in its hot spot area since 2006. Prior to that, it was excavated, backfilled, and had a multilayer cap installed.

Despite the settlement agreement being signed nine years ago, DEM still hasn’t issued a Clean Air operating permit. When asked, agency spokesperson Evan LaCross told ecoRI News that while DEM hasn’t yet issued a permit, RIRRC was still required to comply with four major and nine minor air source permits already in place, in addition to any federal regulations.

LaCross noted RIRRC’s landfill facility is inspected every two years, and the quasi-public corporation continues to pay the fees annually associated with the permits. The operating permit has been delayed by government inertia, he said.

“Changes to EPA regulations required DEM to ask EPA how those changes applied to RIRRC, and the EPA decided all of RIRRC’s major and minor permits had to be reopened and updated to meet the new requirements,” LaCross said. “This, along with personnel turnover, has caused delays in issuing the operating permit.”

LaCross noted DEM is in the final stages of revising one of the minor source permits, and once the permit is issued, it will serve as a template for the remaining permits. Only once the major and minor source permits are issued can DEM finally issue its Clean Air operating permit, per the settlement agreement.

Rhodes said RIRRC, Broadrock, and RI LFG Genco had made improvements in other areas, including installing dewatering capability to 41 landfill gas wells, upgrading the heads installed on all wells to monitor air flow, replacing two damaged wells a year, and decommissioning underperforming or damaged collectors as needed.

“The design of the landfill gas wells themselves has been modified,” he said, “with shorter lengths of solid pipe to reduce the impact of water issues and allow for better collection of landfill gas.”

CLF didn’t respond to ecoRI News’ inquiries about the impact of the 2016 settlement.