Md. to Investigate Dumping On Site in Rural Montgomery
After a Year, County Acts to Remove Debris From Pepco Land Near River

By Miranda S. Spivack
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 2, 2007

Two Maryland agencies are investigating a two-acre pile of debris that has been dumped by a landscaping firm for the past eight years on a secluded site near the Patuxent River, a source of drinking water for the region.

The dump sits on property owned by Pepco in northeastern Montgomery County and rises 20 feet in places. It contains yard and construction waste, including cable, concrete and closed canisters, said government officials who have inspected the site. At one point last year, the debris pile was smoldering and emitting steam.

County officials have been aware of the dump since early 2006, but they did not order removal of the debris or issue fines to Pepco or Kollins Landscaping, the Brinklow firm dumping on the site. The dumping stopped a year ago after a frustrated neighbor obtained a court order. Not until last month did county officials begin examining the dump's contents more closely to assess its toxicity.

Log entries made by a county investigator who examined the site in early 2006 indicate that Pepco knew about the dumping and allowed it to continue.

"Through my conversation with Pepco it is clear that they are aware that Kollins Landscaping is placing materials at this location and that they have let it go on. However this still constitutes an illegal transfer station," said a log entry written in early 2006 by Peter R. Dilima, an inspector with the county's Department of Environmental Protection. Dilima did not respond to requests for comment.

Michael Boland, associate general counsel with Pepco, disputed that assessment.

"I don't know the inspector or how accurate or inaccurate he might have been with his notes and recollections," Boland said yesterday. "We don't permit anything like this. As soon as we became aware of it, we addressed it, and the county inspector thought it had been addressed," he said.

The county's inspector general, Thomas Dagley, whose office is independent of the executive branch, referred the matter to the state attorney general's office and the state Department of the Environment last month. Both agencies have sent investigators to the site in Ashton, state and local officials said.

Dagley said the site, a few hundred feet from the Patuxent River, needs to be examined further to determine whether the dump is toxic. The river is used not only for drinking water but also for fishing and recreation.

"For allegations involving environmental crimes, it is important to the county and state investigators to coordinate," Dagley said. "Unless there is fact-finding at the state level, no one can answer the question of 'Is this an isolated dump on a Pepco site or one of many?' "

County officials said they are focusing on removing the material and pointed out that County Executive Isiah Leggett (D), who took office in December, had inherited the situation.

"We want to work with Pepco to clean it up," said Timothy Firestine, the county's chief administrative officer. "Our position is it needs to be cleaned up. It has been going on for a long time. Wrongs have certainly occurred."

Firestine said county officials estimate that 120 truckloads of debris need to come out. He said efforts are underway to ensure that the removal of the debris does not cause environmental damage.

Dilima's log indicates that several officials in the county's environmental and permitting agencies were told of the debris in early 2006. But dumping continued even as Pepco worked to distribute the waste on the site to try to speed decomposition, Dilima's log indicates.

Last March, a neighbor, Steve Kanstoroom, obtained a court order to stop dump trucks from using a nearby road to reach the site. Even so, one load was dumped there in June, records show.

Dilima's log, which Kanstoroom obtained through a public records request, indicates that the inspector initially urged the removal of the debris but that he agreed to allow most of the material to remain after a Pepco forester proposed spreading it around the site.

According to the log, Pepco forester David Paduda, who patrols the area, told Dilima that he and "others from his office" had a plan to remove some material and leave some to decompose on the site. The log says Paduda also told Steve Pullum of Montgomery's Department of Permitting Services and Paul Kolanowski of Kollins Landscaping of his plan.

Dumping such material legally would be expensive: The county transfer station in Shady Grove charges about $300 to $500 for a truckload of solid waste. Dumping natural wood waste is generally less expensive.

Illegal dumping, a misdemeanor in Montgomery, is punishable by six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Unauthorized storage of solid waste on private property carries a fine of $500 a day.

Because the Ashton dump is near a stream that feeds into the Patuxent River, fines also could be imposed under federal environmental laws.

In mid-March 2006, the dump began giving off steam and possibly smoke, officials said, and it smoldered for several weeks under Pepco's overhead electrical transmission wires. Boland, the Pepco attorney, said yesterday the company did not believe the heat from the dump posed a danger.

Firefighters, inspectors and a state forester arrived to examine the site, but no one tested the dump's contents, according to Dilima's log. Officials agreed to leave the material alone and let it burn out on its own, the log says. Elizabeth Brigham, who lives nearby and is related to Paul Kolanowski, owner of the landscaping firm, was assigned to monitor it, the log says.

"Something is terribly wrong when the county refuses to take enforcement action against corporate polluters . . . and private citizens are left trying to protect their property by acting as a private attorney general," Kanstoroom said.

Kanstoroom said he became aware of the dump several years ago. He said he spoke to Kolanowski about it and thought the dumping had stopped. In early 2006, Kanstoroom began seeing Kollins Landscaping trucks carrying debris into the area and driving out empty. Kanstoroom said he asked Kolanowski to stop it, but the dumping continued. He said he then reported his observations to several county agencies and sent Pepco and county officials a video that showed the dump and the trucks.

Kolanowski declined to comment other than to say the dispute over the dump "was resolved over a year ago."

A few days after Kanstoroom sent out the video, he said, he visited the site and noticed that someone had bulldozed the debris, covered it with dirt and pushed some of it toward a stream that leads into the Patuxent, where much of it remains. Several weeks later, Kanstoroom filed suit in Circuit Court.

County Council member Marc Elrich (D-At Large), whom Kanstoroom approached for help, said the case shows a fundamental breakdown in the county's enforcement of environmental regulations.

Elrich said: "We are trying to ask the county, 'Why were you not able to deal with this? . . . Why was nobody cited? Was it an administrative process with a bottleneck? Or is the law so unclear that you feel you couldn't deal with this? I have met with every department involved."

He added, "Nobody should have to go through this again."