Dive Brief:
- Owners of the Fenimore landfill in Roxbury, NJ, are pushing for state officials and workers to leave the site.
- Strategic Environmental Partners submitted a filing to the Superior Court that states the landfill should be returned in the same condition it was before the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) seized the property, a move that the NJ court ruled the DEP didn't have the authority to do.
- If the court agrees with the owners and grants the order, authorities would have to remove: a cap that covers 18 acres of the site, gas monitoring wells, electric and gas facilities and burn-off systems.
Dive Insight:
In March, 2015, a NJ Supreme Court ruling came down that a 2013 decision rescinding the state’s control of the site, stands.
Richard Beranrdi, the owner of the landfill, said his lawyer advised the company to ask that the site be returned to its former condition, although he admits that may not be practical.
Odor complaints from residents began piling up against the landfill in November 2012. An ongoing battle between the NJ DEP, the site owners and residents, has been going on since then, with all parties involved vying for a different solution to problems stemming from the landfill site. From toxic fumes to asbestos- to lawsuit after lawsuit, a seemingly endless amount of issues have played out at the Fenimore landfill.
