Stand UP and let your voice be heard STOP TOXIC ASH IN OUR LANDFILLS

The state is investigating a “statistically significant increase” in vanadium that was detected at a groundwater monitoring well at the Chesser Island Road Landfill near the Okefenokee Swamp. The levels of vanadium have been “generally increasing” since 2012 at the massive Waste Management dump in Charlton County, according to a March 2016 letter from the Georgia Environmental Protection Division. THIS is a dangerous problem for the people and wild life and living thing in the Charlton county area. As a concerned land owner we were once again kept in the dark about the plans to let Coal ash be dumped in our landfills. Now we are faced with hazardous waste leaking into the very water we drink and use to live. People what are you doing letting our city leaders line their pockets with payoffs to close their eyes while letting toxic companies who do not have any regards for life or clean drinking water. read on do you care . they do not.The AJC reported earlier this year that beryllium and other toxic metals leached from a Wayne County landfill — 50 miles from Chesser Island — into the soil and groundwater. Neighbors and environmentalists worry that both landfills, located near wetlands and rivers, are hazardous to South Georgia’s health and ecological well-being.“These big dumps like Chesser Island and Wayne County are located in one of the most fragile ecosystems in the world, with wetlands, marshes, rivers and their tributaries, so to have this kind of coal ash dumped here is very worrisome,” said Alex Kearns, the chairwoman of St. Marys Earthkeeper, an environmental nonprofit in coastal Camden County. “We’re turning into a coal ash wastebasket for the East Coast.”

Substance used on dirt roads Vanadium, a grayish, odorless metal, is found in the air, water and soil and can remain there for a long time. There is no federal drinking water standard for vanadium. Only eight states mandate groundwater standards.Breathing vanadium, via coal ash dust, may cause chest pain or lung damage. The Atlanta-based Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry says drinking it may cause nausea, diarrhea and stomach cramps. In animal studies, vanadium triggered decreased red blood cell counts, elevated blood pressure, neurological effects and harm to the reproductive system.Jacksonville, Fla.’s Northside Generating Station, which burns coal and petroleum coke mixed with limestone, makes a particularly potent ash. Some of it remains on site in a dozen ponds or landfills, according to the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. Millions of pounds have been shipped to Chesser Island. And some was turned into a road-building material called EZBase.Used properly, the ash helps turn dirt roads into hard-packed, easily maintained byways. Keeping ash out of landfills also saves utilities tons of money in tipping fees. Georgia officials, though, had little knowledge — or oversight — of EZBase when it was first used a decade ago.Charlton County then bought 320,000 tons of EZBase from the Jacksonville utility, according to a memo amid several thousand pages of EPD files perused by the newspaper. It was stockpiled in two large mounds near Folkston and used to harden 20 miles of county roads.Residents complained of nausea, headaches and other maladies from wind-blown ash. The EPD told county officials as early as 2007 to not use EZBase, which hadn’t received an application permit. The EPD soon discovered high levels of vanadium in the stockpiles.In November 2010, a University of Florida professor warned that “vanadium concentrations in runoff from test beds were sufficiently high that caution is warranted regarding placement of EZBase roads immediately adjacent to sensitive wetlands.” Florida officials banned EZBase from residential areas and schools.In the summer of 2010, according to The Florida Times-Union, the Jacksonville Electric Authority spent $3 million hauling EZBase to the Chesser Island landfill. (The utility didn’t return calls from the AJC.)‘Statistically significant increase’ Waste Management has its 32 groundwater monitoring wells tested each year in February and August. Results are sent to the EPD. In August 2012, the vanadium levels stood at 3 parts per billion in one well. In February 2015, it was 13 PPB. Six months later it had dropped to 9.5 PPB.The vanadium levels rose to 11 PPB in February 2016.While Georgia has no water quality standard for vanadium, North Carolina does. Two years ago a well, near a Duke Power coal ash pond, registered an estimated concentration of 14 parts per billion — more than 45 times the state’s safe drinking water standard.In a Feb. 15, 2016, certified letter to Waste Management, EPD geologist Joshua Frizzell wrote that the Chesser Island well showed a “statistically significant increase,