Asbestos is sealed, neighbors are told

By Erica Solvig Enquirer staff writer
UNION TWP. - The yellow sign warning of asbestos recently posted outside the now capped Bigfoot Run landfill has raised eyebrows and some worries among nearby residents. Signs went up recently warning of asbestos at the closed Bigfoot Run Sanitary Landfill in Union Township.

However, environmental officials say there is no cause for alarm and that, in fact, the sign should have been there all along. The landfill - along with many other municipal waste landfills - had permission to accept asbestos waste until it was closed and capped in 1999. Those landfills are required to post warning signs, according to Ohio Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman Heather Lauer. The agency does not know why one was not put up at Bigfoot until recently, Lauer said.

"That landfill is capped and asbestos is most dangerous when it is airborne," she said. "Certainly, it is still out there. ... It's better to get it out of your basements, out of your schools, out of municipal buildings and public places and into a place where it is not going to be airborne." Someone distributed an anonymous flier with a photo of the sign and the statement: "The area residents have a right to know what is in their backyards!!!" Bill Brausch, whose 10-acre property is adjacent to the landfill, said he wasn't surprised it took so long to post a sign acknowledging what lies among the trash. "We've been fighting this, and this would give us more fodder to fight it," he said of ongoing efforts to put a second landfill there.