The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Iowa City, Iowa, recently agreed to an administrative civil settlement over Clean Air Act violations that will see Iowa City spend more than $2.1 million on compliance measures, an environmental project and a civil penalty.
The violations were discovered in a July 2014 investigation, carried out by EPA Region 7, of city’s sanitary landfill, wherein investigators found violations of the New Source Performance Standards for Municipal Solid Waste Landfills. The landfill did not comply with requirements related to monitoring and had not expanded its gas collection well system once it grew beyond the oxygen content, methane concentration and pressure standards. Additionally, the landfill was not being properly monitored for surface emissions and landfill cover integrity.
Through the settlement, the city will pay a civil penalty of just over $8,000, but will also invest nearly $2 million to bring the landfill into compliance with the regulations it was cited for violating.
The city will also be responsible for a Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP), which will see it purchase and install thermal cameras for the landfill, allowing for better monitoring of the landfill’s surface and subsurface temperatures. This project carries an estimated cost of $109,000.
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