Broome Landfill Won’t Take Asbestos For Several More Months

Demolition contractors likely will not be permitted to dump debris containing asbestos at the Broome County landfill until late this year.

For several months, the facility in the town of Nanticoke has banned deliveries containing hazardous asbestos from commercial entities.

County Executive Jason Garnar said there are "very strict requirements" about the types of waste that can be placed in the landfill's massive cells. He said a new cell was opened at the end of last year.

Asbestos can't be put into that cell until the space has been built up with a certain level of "regular non-asbestos waste." Garnar said state regulations must be followed or the landfill could be fined or shut down.

The county executive acknowledges the ban "comes at a particularly difficult time" for  local demolition companies. He noted a substantial amount of debris from the IBM Old Building Group demolition remains on the Huron Campus in Endicott.

Garnar said the landfill already had accepted tons of material containing asbestos from the massive demolition project. He said the county took in more asbestos from that single site than the landfill had received from all other sites over the last decade or longer.

Garnar acknowledged the situation creates problems for debris that remains after a structure has been torn down following a fire, as happened recently in Johnson City.

In that case, LCP Group of Vestal wound up hauling several truckloads of material more than 200 miles to a Jamestown landfill.

At this point, Garnar said it appears the county landfill may be able to again accept material that contains asbestos by the end of the year. But, he said, that's simply an estimate.

Enter your number to get our free mobile app

Contact WNBF News reporter Bob Joseph: bob@wnbf.com or call (607) 545-2250. For breaking news and updates on developing stories, follow @BinghamtonNow on Twitter.