Vermont's Solid Waste Conundrum - Cruise Control and a Monopoly Don't Protect Us

July 21, 2025

Enough of kicking the (trash) can down the road

With the many challenges our state government faces, there’s one challenge flying under the radar. A single corporation, Casella, has been given the keys to drive Vermont’s solid waste “tractor-trailer.” Many other state governments recognize that solid waste management is a necessary part of public utilities and infrastructure. They choose to address and manage the challenge. We choose to wash our hands of it.

 

We have one landfill operating in the small community of Coventry in the NEK (population around 1,000). 80% of our trash ends up there along with trash including asbestos and other “special wastes” from out of state. Effectively a multi-billion dollar corporation accountable to stockholders calls the shots. It determines the fees haulers pay and in turn what businesses and residents pay. No public service commission is in place to ensure the monopoly doesn’t unduly harm the interests of customers in the way of fair pricing in the absence of competition. How did we let this happen?

 

The lone landfill is far removed from the population centers where the vast majority of trash is generated. Vermont’s approach to solid waste management is designed to maximize fossil fuel consumption, maximize generation of greenhouse gasses (GHG) and maximize wear and tear of state and local roads. You have undoubtedly seen the tractor trailers plying our roads without recognizing just what those trailers are hauling. A survey done several years ago found 65 trucks coming and going to and from the landfill in just a two hour period. It was also estimated that nearly 20,000 miles are travelled daily by trucks coming from the various transfer stations just in Vermont.

 

Beyond the fossil fuel, GHG and road impacts, the landfill also generates leachate (aka garbage juice). The leachate contains arsenic, cadmium and an encyclopedia’s worth of PFAS (forever chemicals) among other toxins. Some of that leachate is trucked to the Montpelier waste water treatment plant (more fossil fuel, GHG and road impact) for partial processing before discharge to the Winooski River and then Lake Champlain. Some discharges enter the wetlands of the Black River which flows into Lake Memphremagog -a public water supply for 175,000 Canadians. ANR did halt the dumping of partially processed leachate into Lake Memphremagog for now, but that is not a permanent halt. It is worth noting that Memphremagog hosts a population of catfish where some 40% of the fish sampled show malignant melanomas. Memphremagog is the only lake in Vermont to have such affected fish. The cause of the melanomas remains unknown, however researchers have found these cancerous fish only in environmentally contaminated waters.

 
Alternate landfill sites that are hydro-geologically secure have been identified by the state yet no work is currently being done to bring them online. We are on cruise control knowing the Coventry landfill will reach capacity in some 20 years. What is our Plan B and why have we not begun work on opening a site closer to where the trash is generated and away from a precious water resource? Surely Casella Corporation has a plan b in hand. Why are we not in open discussion about that?

 

Vermont is operating on the basis of the magical trash bin…put your trash in the bin at night and in the morning it will magically be gone! Voila! Problem solved! We are living in a bubble subject to a monopoly, trusting that public interests will be fully protected by Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources. To date, that trust has been broken as evidenced by the current Rube Goldberg approach to managing our trash and the toxic trash sent to us from out of state as well as the trucking of leachate to Montpelier. This state should set the gold standard, instead we are a throwback to a time long past.

 

Enough of kicking the (trash) can down the road. Out of sight, out of mind should not be the basis of Vermont’s public policy.

 

Effie Brown, Derby

Teresa Gerade, Newport

S. Christopher Jacobs, Albany

Polly Jones, Manchester and Derby

Pam Ladds, Newport

Ann Lembo, Albany

Walter Medwid, Derby

Gillian Staniforth, Derby

Henry Coe and DUMP receive MCI Award

July 21, 2025
Henry Coe and DUMP honored with prestigious Gordon-Kohl award.

Public Meeting regarding the landfill in Coventry - DUMP voices concerns

March 19, 2025
NEWSVT requests Solid Waste Certification Amendment for Leachate Treatment System

Legislation affecting environmental health and safety in the Northeast Kingdom

February 27, 2025
Protecting the health and safety of our environment, public, wildlife and economy must be our legislative priority.
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Leachate Leak

November 19, 2024
A SAFF Violation Press Release
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Where Are the Watchdogs?

November 19, 2024
Casella's Risky Gamble with Public Safety
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New Permit Threatens Lake Memphremagog

November 19, 2024
On May 31 the Department of Environmental Conservation Watershed Management Division issued the final amended Permit for the pilot leachate pretreatment system on site at the NEWSVT Coventry landfill. The pretreatment system is supposed to filter toxic PFAS chemicals from the 60,000 gallons a day of leachate produced by the landfill. “Forever” PFAS chemicals , found in leachate and toxic even in minute amounts, are known to contaminate the environment and cause serious health effects, including cancer, in humans. Many doubts exist about the safety and effectiveness of the relatively new SAFF technology chosen by NEWSVT. At a December 12, 2023 public meeting in Newport, many concerns from the public were raised about the chosen leachate pretreatment technology, including that only five- out of the existing 15,000 PFAS chemicals- would be required to be filtered to “non-detect” levels. “Non-detect” amounts of PFAS chemicals are not safe levels. Research has proved that many of the thousands of other PFAS compounds will escape filtration entirely due to their microscopic size, will enter the environment, accumulate over time, and cause harm to humans and wildlife that drink or eat PFAS contaminated water and food. Now the pilot leachate pretreatment permit has been issued, with some very sketchy language that creates loopholes big enough to drive an MBI truck through once the pilot ends. These loopholes: 1) Would open the door to making the pilot leachate pretreatment facility a permanent installation on the landfill, without any opportunity for public review or comment once the180-day pilot ends; 2) Could allow for the resumption of the disposal of “treated” leachate into international Lake Memphremagog, a drinking water reservoir for 175,000 Quebec citizens; 3) Could allow for the import of thousands of gallons a day of leachate from other landfills; 4) Would establish performance standards that may not be as strict as results other available leachate pretreatment technologies provide; 5) Allow for the return to operating leachate pretreatment 24/7 without full time staffing, as occurred in February, 2024 with the accidental spill of nearly 9,000 gallons of leachate. Prior to 2019, over 41 million gallons of toxic leachate were disposed of into Newport’s Waste Water Treatment Facility, unfiltered for PFAS. The 2019 moratorium imposed by Act 250 forbids treatment or disposal of landfill leachate anywhere in the Memphremagog watershed. The moratorium, designed to protect Memphremagog’s water quality from further contamination, now it is at risk of being sidestepped. The citizens of the Lake Memphremagog region need to come together to say “No” to permanent siting of this leachate treatment pilot in Coventry, “No” to returning to leachate disposal into the watershed, “No” to contaminating the drinking water reservoir of 175,000 Quebec citizens, “No” to polluting our recreational waters, our wildlife habitat, the foundations of our regional tourist economy, “No” to eroding our property values and tax base. Yes, leachate must be filtered for toxic landfill contaminants including PFAS, but only with the safest and most effective technologies and not in the Memphremagog watershed, ever.