No leachate outside landfill, says HSPCB; activists refute claims

The feedback has prompted activists to write to senior functionaries in the HSPCB and the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change, with pictorial and video evidence of the same.

Following an inspection of the Bandhwari landfill site, on Wednesday, the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) said it had not found any evidence of leachate being present beyond the boundary of the landfill, or in surrounding water bodies. An HSCPCB official tasked with the inspection communicated this on Wednesday to the member secretary and regional officer (Gurugram), HSPCB, and to activists who had raised the issue.

Following an inspection of the Bandhwari landfill site, on Wednesday, the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) said it had not found any evidence of leachate being present beyond the boundary of the landfill, or in surrounding water bodies. (Yogendra Kumar/HT PHOTO)

The feedback has prompted activists to write to senior functionaries in the HSPCB and the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change, with pictorial and video evidence of the same. Spot visits by Team HT on Thursday morning also found presence of leachate in surrounding water bodies. This leachate was being let out through at least three PVC pipes present on each side of the boundary wall.

HSPCB engineer Sachin Narwal inspected the area on Wednesday, and said that the pipes will be removed by Ecogreen Energy, the MCG’s concessionaire for waste management in the city. “They were not installed to let out leachate, but rainwater. Other than that, there are no issues. We could not find any signs of leachate contaminating water bodies near the landfill,” he said on Thursday.

Such open discharge of waste, Kamboj said, is a clear violation of multiple environment laws, such as the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 and the Water Act. “It is a major risk to surface water bodies, village ponds and even groundwater in the vicinity, all of which are used daily by residents of Mangar, Baliyawas and Bandhwari villages for drinking and domestic use,” Kamboj said.

The first attempt to control Bandhwari’s leachate problem was made last year, in the form of an in situ leachate treatment plant (LTP) set up by Ecogreen Energy. The plant is presently treating 150 kilolitres of leachate per day, an amount which environmentalists and experts have repeatedly warned will not be enough to get a grip on the problem.

According to Rekha Singh, an approved municipal waste expert certified by the Quality Council of India under the MoEFCC, “The only solution is to close off the landfill.” In 2015, Singh had tested samples from a leachate pond inside the landfill and found that the total dissolved solids (TDS) count in the water was 6,950 mg/l, which is much higher than the permissible limit of 2,100mg/l, according to the Municipal Waste Management Rules, 2000. “The contamination from the leachate pond has started polluting the groundwater, causing serious fluoride, phenolic compound, cadmium and mercury poisoning,” Singh had stated in her report.

On July 30, 2017, Ecogreen Energy had sent the first batch of water from the LTP for testing to a private laboratory. The test results showed that the water did not meet all the criteria specified in the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2015.

Sunil Harsana, an activist from the neighbouring Mangar village, who had highlighted the issue of leachate runoff earlier this week, said, “The issue is a routine one. It has been happening every monsoon for the better part of a decade. Rather than such informal surveys, it would be helpful if the HSPCB could test the soil and water samples in the area before concluding that there is no leachate presence.”

Kuldeep Singh, the HSPCB’s regional officer in Gurugram, said that a thorough survey of the area is underway by scientists of the National Energy Research Institute. “The test results will reveal whether or not leachate contamination is an issue in the area surrounding the landfill,” he said.

(Ecogreen’s version awaited)