Harford County residents raised a stink about a proposal to nearly triple the size of a local landfill.
“What?s in the old landfill is going to be squeezed like an orange slice in a juicer,” said Kevin Kitts, who lives across Scarboro Road from the Harford Waste Disposal Center.
They told Maryland Department of the Environment officials Thursday about their concerns over the contamination of nearby wells and streams by the center, which is built atop an older dump lacking modern pollution controls.
Others were angry that the county was expanding the landfill from 41 to 118 acres instead of building new waste incinerators to reduce trash.
The site opened as an unlined trench landfill in 1957. A modern landfill with a layer of water-resistant clay, plastic liner and a drainage system was built on top of it in 1986.
The expansion is expected to add about 30 years of capacity to the landfill, which is nearly full, said Frank Henderson, deputy director of Harford?s Division of Environmental Affairs.
The county will study expanding the incinerator at the Edgewood area of Aberdeen Proving Ground in response to base realignment and closure, said county BRAC Manager Karen Emery.
