AREA A/B ENGINEERING REPORT - Waste Management

Geosyntec Consultants
impact health when taken in large enough doses, and the “doses” found in leachate from Subtitle-
D landfills are very small.
Epidemiology studies performed to date for landfills have not specifically evaluated modern
MSW landfill facilities. Rather, most studies have investigated hazardous waste sites that were
once landfills (e.g., Superfund sites), old unregulated waste disposal sites (e.g., historically
referred to as “dumps”), hazardous waste landfills, or mixtures of different types of landfills.
Modern MSW landfills permitted under Subtitle-D differ substantially with respect to waste
disposal history, engineering design, and daily operations from these other types of landfills. The
most recent and authoritative epidemiological studies related to MSW landfills are discussed
below. These studies clearly indicate the absence of a link between modern MSW landfills and
health impacts.
Redfearn & Roberts (2002) reviewed the results of 13 single-site epidemiological studies related
to seven landfills and four multiple-site landfill studies. They noted that most of the single-site
studies focused on large, old landfills that had been operated under outdated regulatory
programs or that had received hazardous or liquid chemical wastes. The multi-site studies
focused on mixtures of different types of landfills, including old hazardous waste landfills that
had not been capped or lined. They concluded that the study results were inconsistent with
respect to specific types of health effects, citing that “no association” was a more common
outcome than “positive association”. They also concluded that the studies do not provide
convincing, rigorous evidence for an association between landfills and adverse birth outcomes,
even for the older landfills. More recent studies of congenital anomalies and cancer (Palmer et
al. 2005, Dummer et al. 2003, Irvine 2003, Jarup et al. 2002, Morris et al. 2003b) have similarly
shown that residential proximity to a landfill has not been demonstrated to be associated with
increased risks. A comprehensive review of the health effects of MSW sites conducted by the
Department of the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in the U.K. “did not detect an
increase in the occurrence of cancer” even in older (operating from 1983 to 1999) landfill sites
(DEFRA, et al, 2004).
Finally, in 1999 the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) initiated
research to evaluate the pathways and fate of active pharmaceutical ingredients from the
consumer to surface waters (PhRMA, 2006). One potential pathway identified by PhRMA was the
disposal of pharmaceutical-containing sources in household trash and in MSW landfills. PhRMA
initiated this study to evaluate surface water exposures through the landfill disposal pathway.
The landfill-to-surfacewater pathway was calculated to account for an average of 0.21 percent
to 0.78 percent of the estimated aggregate annual surfacewater releases for the 23 APIs
evaluated. Thus, over 99.22 percent of pharmaceutical ingredient releases to surface water are
due to services other than landfill disposal.
MD10186.doc 114 29 March 2009