Environmental agency to take legal action over unresolved pollution at Kazokiškės landfill
The Lithuanian Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has confirmed that the Vilnius County Waste Management Centre (VAATC) has failed to stop excessive hydrogen sulphide pollution at the Kazokiškės landfill, and will now seek a court order to enforce compliance.
According to the EPA, the decision follows an assessment of air quality monitoring data from the Environmental Protection Agency, which showed that between 25 March and 28 June this year, the half-hour hydrogen sulphide concentration limit was exceeded for 10.6% of the total measurement time. Additional tests in June also detected further exceedances downwind of the site.
The EPA had issued a mandatory order to VAATC on 12 March to halt the pollution. Although the company reported compliance on 9 June, continuous monitoring by the Environmental Protection Agency indicated that the issue persisted. The EPA stated that legal action will be taken against VAATC for failing to meet the order.
Environmental officials suggest that the increased pollution may be due to malfunctioning leachate collection and wastewater treatment systems, inadequate landfill gas collection, improper waste covering, and insufficient control over waste sorting at the site.
On 24 March, the mayor of Elektrėnai municipality, Gediminas Ratkevičius, declared a state of emergency in the municipality due to the pollution at Kazokiškės landfill. The emergency remains in effect. At the end of March, the mayor also announced a decision to cover 14,000 tonnes of semi-burnt waste at the landfill, which had resulted from the cleanup of a fire at the “Energesman” waste processing plant.
Acting Environment Minister Kastytis Žuromskas previously stated that the removal of the landfill was not currently under consideration, with the focus instead on identifying and eliminating the source of the pollution.
In mid-June, VAATC told ELTA that it was continuing long-term measures to reduce odours and emissions. The company reported that about 70% of the eastern slope of the landfill had already been covered with a special biological layer to neutralise odours, which it estimates could reduce odour-causing gas emissions by 70–90%. VAATC planned to complete the covering of the eastern slope by 30 June, expand the gas collection system by the end of July, and modernise the leachate treatment equipment by November.
Source: LRT