Joe Tamburino struggles for words when trying to describe the fetid, gaseous stench from a local landfill that for more than five months has hung over Hillside and wafted across other western suburbs.
“It’s the worst odor I’ve ever smelled. I’ve smelled dead bodies–I spent a year in Vietnam–and this is worse,” says Tamburino, Hillside’s village president. “Once this gets in your home, it gets in your clothes. You can’t open your window to get rid of the odor because it’s worse outside.”
It’s also illegal, according to court papers. Under federal, state and local laws, landfills are required to collect and destroy gases that are the natural byproduct of decomposing waste in landfills.
Until last fall, a piping system at the Congress Development Co. landfill, which sits just north of the Eisenhower Expressway near Mannheim Road, more or less did that: It collected methane gas from the landfill so it could be used to power turbines that generate electricity. But the piping system broke down and methane gas began seeping out of the landfill and into the air.
By November, Hillside residents were filing complaints about the smell with local and state agencies, and officials from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency were citing the landfill with violations of environmental statutes.
In January, the Illinois EPA again hit the landfill with violations, and Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan’s office followed up with a lawsuit. That suit in late January yielded a court order for Congress Development to install a new gas piping system.
That new system is running now, and close to completion, landfill officials said. But the nauseating methane gas cloud, which area residents say has sickened them for months, is still an everyday nuisance.
“About two weeks ago, it smelled like it was in the basement. Keep in mind, this is winter–with the windows closed–and it’s still coming in the house,” said Jennie Kieliszewski, a 13-year Hillside resident who lives just south of the landfill on a block of tidy working-class homes.
“What are we going to do when we start opening up the windows?”
Under the January court order, Congress Development was given until June to install a gas-collection system that stops the smell or it faces fines of up to $1,000 a day per violation.
“The odors have gotten better, [but] the permanent fixing of the odor problem is not something you do overnight,” said Philip Comella, an environmental attorney who represents the company. Congress Development officials “really do care about not being a nuisance, and that’s the bottom line.”
Comella said the company has spent about $1.5 million installing new pipes since late January. But digging up portions of the landfill, mostly to replace old pipes, has caused additional gases to escape this spring, making a miserable situation even worse.
“There’s been days when it’s just been horrendous,” said John Stare, who runs the Renaissance at Hillside, a nursing and rehabilitation center that serves about 160 patients just west of the landfill.
“This is where sick people live. Imagine you’re sick and you have to smell this,” Stare said. “There’s nothing we can do about it because it’s coming through the vents.”
While flammable, methane is not toxic. But it can nauseate people and give them headaches, said Ken Runkle, an environmental toxicologist from the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Hotel’s unwelcome guest
Sam Roti, principal owner of the Holiday Inn at Hillside, said the smell is bad enough. Roti said it has been a disaster for his business, which backs directly up to the landfill along the north side of the Eisenhower.
Roti said that underground methane gas has been escaping from the landfill and is seeping directly into parts of the hotel building.
Roti said Congress Development recently paid to have several electronic gas sensors installed at the hotel.
The landfill company has also installed a separate gas-collection system along the perimeter of the landfill to prevent future leaks, officials said.
“We have methane gas coming up through our floors….,” Roti said. “We’ve spent a lot of money on deodorizer, [but] there’s nothing you can do.”
Hillside officials have long voiced similar frustration with the situation, and the village’s March 22 court filing offers a complicated explanation of what allegedly went wrong–and why it has taken so long to end Hillside’s noxious nightmare.
In short, the village largely blames a now-bankrupt company and its purported owner for installing a faulty gas-collection system a decade ago, then failing to maintain it.
That company, Resource Technology Corp., which has been involved in bankruptcy proceedings since 1999, held a contract to use methane at the landfill for generating electricity until early this year.
“No money was put into the upkeep and maintenance of this gas system,” said Michael Blazer, an environmental attorney whose firm is now working for Hillside. “It deteriorated to the point where it was inoperable, and that to me is a travesty.”
A legal logjam
Before January, Congress Development was prevented under the bankruptcy code from replacing the pipes because they were part of a dispute over the assets belonging to the bankrupt RTC.
But a bankruptcy judge in January broke that legal logjam by approving a move that allowed Congress Development to cancel the contract.
Within weeks, the company agreed to the court order sought by Madigan’s office and went to work building a new gas-collection system.
That new system is not yet capable of using methane to fuel generators that produce electricity, although officials said that’s the long-term plan.
For now, the pipes funnel methane to a pair of so-called flares–one of which is visible from the Eisenhower–that burn the gas off.
The village’s court filing last month also alleges that RTC’s purported owner, Chicago-based investor Leon Greenblatt III, pocketed substantial profits from the Hillside operation while allowing the landfill’s piping system to deteriorate and eventually fail.
During a recent telephone interview, Greenblatt denied that he controls Resource Technology Corp. but declined to comment further.
“The business has been operated by a [bankruptcy] trustee for the entire time they’re complaining about,” he said. “The argument is specious on its face.”
Congress Development has now entered into binding agreements with both Madigan’s office and Hillside to fix the problems at the landfill.
Hillside officials also recently passed a pair of new ordinances meant to provide the village with some control over the gas-collection operation at the Congress Development site.
Village President Tamburino said those legal moves will be followed by others, if necessary–whatever it takes to bring some relief to local homeowners who are sick and tired of their town smelling like a sun-baked garbage can.
“Our residents have literally gone through hell with this,” he said.
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bmcneil@tribune.com
