For decades, the people of Yukon, a town of around 500 in Westmoreland County, have lived beneath a growing mountain of industrial waste.
Since 1964, when a landfill first began to take in the sludgy, heavy-metal-laden byproducts of a then-booming steel industry, locals have complained of health problems and suspected the facility of operating dangerously.
A March report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] presents new evidence that landfill operator MAX Environmental failed to comply with federal clean water and hazardous waste laws, reinforcing long-held suspicions among the landfill’s neighbors.
“These are things that the community has been saying for a long time,” said Stacey Magda, an organizer with Mountain Watershed Association, who pointed to a generalized failure to contain hazardous waste and unpermitted liquid storage tanks found on-site as “big red flags.”
“And now we actually have documentation,” she said.
In March, EPA investigators spent five days at the facility and found that MAX failed to properly treat and store hazardous waste. An EPA lab found one sample with more than 1,300 times the safe disposal limit of cancer-causing cadmium in a landfill not permitted for untreated hazardous waste disposal. Investigators found leaks, spills and dilapidated hazardous waste storage areas, and reported that MAX failed to properly inspect its leak detection system and hazardous waste containment areas.
The investigation also found that the company did not report some monitoring data to regulators as its permit requires, and that it did not use equipment intended to remove hazardous heavy metals from wastewater discharged into Sewickley Creek, a main tributary to the Youghiogheny River that flows into the Monongahela at McKeesport.
Mountain Watershed Association, a conservation and watchdog group that advocates for the safety of residents in Yukon and for the protection of the greater watershed, first obtained the EPA report in October through a public records review.
“This is the first time that we’ve really seen this really black-and-white proof of what’s really happening at MAX Environmental,” Magda said.
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The EPA’s findings come as MAX seeks to add a seventh landfill permit to its operations in Yukon, and as the company petitions state regulators to reclassify the sludge it generates from waste treatment as nonhazardous.
MAX Environmental General Manager Carl Spadaro said in an email response to PublicSource’s questions that the company has since revised waste sampling procedures and “implemented a modified procedure” for testing certain treated hazardous waste to make sure it meets standards. The company has also begun a “structural assessment” of the containment building floor, and stormwater management training. MAX recently hired an engineering consultant to evaluate possible improvements of a containment area, and a contractor to repair the exterior walls of containment buildings, Spadaro wrote.
‘Actively leaking’ hazardous waste
In March, investigators from the EPA’s National Enforcement Investigations Center [NEIC] spent five days at MAX’s facility in Yukon, which is permitted to treat and dispose of hazardous waste. MAX must treat hazardous waste to acceptable levels before burying it in their landfill, according to permits.
EPA testing, however, found that samples of the waste treated and buried by MAX contained up to 21 times the standard for lead, and more than 1,300 times the standard for cadmium, which is considered a cancer-causing agent by the Centers for Disease Control.
According to the report, MAX’s on-site laboratory tested and approved waste for disposal which remained hazardous after treatment. The report notes MAX’s hazardous waste treatment process is “ineffective” at meeting treatment standards.
MAX’s Spadaro wrote that the company disagrees with the observation that MAX does not properly treat hazardous waste. A Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] accredited laboratory “analyzed the waste at issue and demonstrated that we meet the appropriate treatment standards,” he wrote. He added: “Any hazardous waste leaks or spills that NEIC might have observed were onto containment areas, which is what they were designed and constructed for.”
EPA regulations stipulate that hazardous waste storage areas must be “completely enclosed,” but when investigators arrived at MAX’s Yukon facility they observed “significant damage and deterioration” to the walls of its hazardous waste storage buildings and “large holes” and damaged or missing exterior walls which exposed hazardous waste to the elements. Investigators observed rain falling directly on hazardous waste through holes in the roof of a storage building, and a building that stored hazardous waste that was missing a wall entirely on its eastern side.
Investigators observed hazardous waste in open containers, “actively leaking” from a storage container and on the ground outside treatment pits. Vehicles that came into contact with waste tracked it across the facility, the EPA found.
Spadaro wrote that the landfill’s neighbors “should have no concerns about health and safety related to our operations because the wastes are kept on site in contained areas.” He added that facility employees have “periodic medical examinations to make sure that they are not exposed to elevated levels of hazardous materials.”
Defending the sludge
In a 2019 petition to the DEP, MAX wrote that its “sludge has not exhibited any hazardous characteristic, created any environmental impact, or been managed in a manner inconsistent with any environmental regulations,” with waste concentrations “well below” standards. It asked that the runoff from its landfill no longer be considered hazardous waste. The petition to delist the waste is pending regulatory approval.
In March, EPA investigators found that MAX’s equipment used to remove heavy metals from wastewater “is not properly operated and maintained and was out of service.” They wrote: “The facility is not getting complete treatment,” possibly resulting in excess metals in the wastewater. EPA records show that MAX violated its discharge permits in five straight quarters between January of 2022 and March of this year.
Stacey Magda (left), an organizer with Mountain Watershed Association, and Yukon resident Debbie Franzetta (right), who moved to Yukon with her husband in 1987, look out across Sewickley Creek near the outfall where MAX discharges on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2023. “Why now?” Franzetta asked of the EPA inspection. “They should have been here 40 years ago.” (Photos by Quinn Glabicki/PublicSource)
Roughly a week later, John Stolz, director of the Center for Environmental Research and Education at Duquesne University, sampled discharge from the facility’s outfall into Sewickley Creek. According to his preliminary testing “the discharge was incredibly high,” he said. “Everything was elevated.”
“They’re saying they discharge 23 micrograms per liter on average with a maximum of 79 micrograms per liter on a maximum for arsenic,” said Stolz. “And I’m telling you, I’ve measured over 600 micrograms per liter in their discharge.”
The amount of arsenic Stolz found at MAX’s outfall is nearly eight times higher than the maximum amount the company reported to regulators. For lead, Stolz’s testing showed levels 5.7 times higher than what MAX reported. For copper, his results came in more than 24 times the company’s reported levels.
“People are fishing in that stream,” Stolz said. The outfall is roughly 200 yards upstream from a marked roadside fishing location. “People are recreating in that stream.” He added that more testing is needed upstream and downstream to understand the impact on the watershed.
“This shouldn’t be for me to do.” Stolz said. “This should be for the DEP to do.”
DEP spokesperson Lauren Camarda said that agency staff attended the March investigation with the EPA and is aware of the contents of the report. The agency is conducting a separate investigation into the facility, and does not comment on ongoing investigations, Camarda said.
What does the future hold?
Last year, MAX applied for a permit to build a seventh landfill in Yukon which would dispose of untreated hazardous waste. At a DEP hearing at the local fire hall last December, residents shared a range of illnesses that they blame on MAX and urged the agency to deny the expansion.
Misty Springer, who lives below the landfill, told the DEP representatives that she’s experienced six miscarriages. “Not fun going through one, but six of them, it’s fucking hell,” she said.
“How many people on your block have cancer?” she asked officials. “How many people in your town? Because I bet your town is bigger than mine, and I bet you my town has more people with cancer than yours.”
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In February, after residents opposed the expansion and the DEP notified the company of deficiencies in its application, MAX pulled its submission, but vowed to refile.
Now, in light of the current EPA investigation, MAX’s Spadaro said the company has suspended plans to pursue the permit “until we resolve all outstanding compliance concerns from EPA and DEP.”
“This is a crux moment,” Magda said. “Landfill six is very close to capacity. We now know that there is untreated hazardous waste in there. We don’t know where. We don’t know how deep.”
“The untreated hazardous waste is never going to leave Yukon.”
Quinn Glabicki is the environment and climate reporter at PublicSource and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at quinn@publicsource.org and on Instagram @quinnglabicki.
This story was fact-checked by Abigail Nemec-Merwede.
