Order continues restrictions on Rostraver landfill

By Stephen Huba
Trib Total Media News Wire Services
A consent order signed by a Fayette County judge on Wednesday prohibits the discharge of harmful effluent into the Monongahela River by a landfill and a treatment facility.
The action by Common Pleas Judge Steve Leskinen continues a 90-day order he issued in May at the request of Fayette County District Attorney Richard Bower and Washington County District Attorney Eugene Vittone.
The district attorneys sought the order over concerns that leachate from Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill in Rostraver was reaching the river without being treated properly by the Belle Vernon Municipal Authority’s treatment plant.
The order, which is effective through Aug. 21, 2020, prohibits the landfill from discharging effluent into the Mon except indirectly through publicly-owned treatment works other than the Belle Vernon Municipal Authority.
The order also prohibits the landfill from sending any other “water, wastewater, discharge, contaminants, effluent, pollutants, leachate, sludge, biological processes or any other substances” to the municipal authority without its prior written consent.
The municipal authority had accepted leachate — liquid that comes in contact with waste — from the landfill via pipeline but became concerned it could no longer treat the leachate and stay in compliance with its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permit.

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