EPA to Yukon landfill operator: fix violations or face $73,000-a-day fine

Federal environmental regulators have given a Yukon landfill operator a series of deadlines to fix problems in how it treats hazardous materials and stores the treated waste on its property or possibly face a $73,000-a-day fine.

MAX Environmental Technologies Inc. of Pittsburgh will be able to continue treating hazardous waste from a number of industrial sources as it has done for the past 60 years, but under a set of limits outlined in the consent decree it signed with the Environmental Protection Agency on April 19.

The consent decree, which took effect Friday, is designed to compel MAX to comply with federal and state hazardous waste safeguards that protect the health of the community and the environment, the EPA said.

“We are working to ensure compliance with the EPA and the DEP (state Department of Environmental Protection) consent decree,” said Carl Spadaro, environmental general manager for MAX Environmental.

The EPA barred MAX from dumping untreated waste on its 16-acre landfill and from disposing the treated and untreated hazardous waste in its landfill until the material is reviewed and analyzed by an auditor, then tested by a state-accredited laboratory. Ten waste samples taken during a March 2023 inspection found levels exceeding the limits for cadmium and lead. Stabilization pits where waste is treated did not ensure the residual matter met standards, the EPA said.

The additional steps to test the hazardous material could cause some delays in the waste handling process and possibly slowdown operations, Spadaro said.

MAX has hired a contractor to repair a waste-holding building, Spadaro said.

The consent decree stated rainwater poured in from a leaky roof onto untreated waste and a containment building had large holes in its exterior walls. The company can’t use the area of the building until that roof is repaired. which must be done within 120 days of the EPA approving the plans for the project, the consent decree stated.

Residents living within 300 feet of the the border of the last operating landfill are to have their wells monitored for a number of pollutants, according to the decree.

Craig Zafaras, who said one of his three wells is within 50 feet of the MAX property, said he has never had his well water tested. He has a public water supply, but also uses wells.

“Nobody’s approached me about it,” Zafaras said.

When the EPA issued a notice of violations to MAX Environmental in December 2023, it expressed concerns about the company’s operations and potential for releasing hazardous waste from the site.

The consent decree allowing MAX Environment to continue taking the hazardous waste, however, “is grossly inadequate considering the length of non-compliance issues that the EPA and DEP (state Department of Environmental Protection) have found over the life of the facility,” said Stacy Magda, managing organizer for the Mountain Watershed Association, a Melcroft-based organization that has monitored MAX’s operations.

“The EPA and the DEP really dropped the ball in holding MAX accountable for every single page of the 50 pages of ongoing issues at the facility,” Magda said.

With holes in the building where MAX stores untreated hazardous waste, the community does not know what is being released into the air, Magda said.

MAX Environmental and its predecessor company, Mill Service, have been treating industrial waste from sources such as steel mills and other factories at the South Huntingdon site since 1964. The operations have been a source of complaints from the community about air pollution, odors and water pollution that residents said have impacted their health and life for decades.

A proposed $275,000 settlement of a class action lawsuit by some Yukon area residents against MAX Environment over the odors and dust wafting from the landfill operations, has yet to be approved by Westmoreland County Judge Harry Smail Jr.