OKLAHOMA CITY – The state mandate requiring the City of Lawton to eliminate trash emanating from the municipal landfill apparently was triggered by an inspection a year ago this month.
When Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) personnel inspected Lawton’s landfill on Dec. 5, 2018, they reported observing “exposed waste in the wet weather working face area and blowing litter on the north, south and east sides of the working face.” Subsequently the agency issued a Notice of Violation on Jan. 11, 2019. ODEQ employees performed a follow-up inspection on April 5 this year and “observed that there was still blowing litter around the north, south and east sides of the working face” of the landfill. Ten days later the city requested an extension of time to remove the loose litter.
On April 18 the ODEQ granted a 90-day extension because the city “had made some progress in controlling blowing litter on the south side of the working face.” Agency personnel performed another follow-up inspection on Aug. 9 and “observed that while a good amount of work had been done, there was still blowing litter on the north, south and east sides of the working face” of the landfill. Later that month the city and the ODEQ “agreed to resolve the issues through a consent order. The agreement requires the city to collect all litter “across the facility” and “ensure blowing litter is controlled “within 90 days of execution of the consent order,” or by about Valentine’s Day 2020.
The order decrees that blowing litter must be controlled by:
- providing litter fences near the working area, or by use of a design that prevents blowing litter;
- collecting litter from the site at least weekly “or more often if necessary”;
- posting signs to advise customers to “adequately cover their loads” to prevent blowing litter; and
- ensuring that unloading occurs in a manner that will minimize the scattering of refuse.
“The wind causes litter/ debris to often escape from loads at the landfill,” Tiffany Vrska, the city’s community relations director, wrote this week. In its efforts to comply with the consent order, the city has two temporary employees who pick up trash (“extreme weather may occasionally impact these services,” she wrote) “and we have added one more full-time labor position for this task.” The latter position “has been open since summer 2019, but due to lack of applicants the position has not yet been filled.”
The city is using portable litter fences at the landfill and has ordered 10 more, “which we estimate will be in and operational within the next 60 days,” Ms. Vrska said Thursday. The landfill superintendent and Public Works Director Larry Wolcott have collaborated to evaluate the way that the city’s Parks and Recreation Department “works with inmates for litter cleanup,” Ms. Vrska wrote. Applicable staff recently completed mandatory training “regarding this program in hopes of implementing it at the landfill” next spring, she said.
The state Environmental Quality Code empowers the DEQ to impose penalties of up to $10,000 per day for each violation of the code and associated rules. However, the City of Lawton’s penalty was set at $500, which “is being deferred and will be waived” when Lawton brings the landfill into compliance with the consent order, DEQ Communications Director Erin Hatfield said Wednesday.