Campbell Mountain landfill contaminants detected in monitoring well

PENTICTON – After years of monitoring the Campbell Mountain landfill for leaching of materials from the dumpsite, water from a monitoring well has tested positive for contaminants.

The leachate, which has passed beyond the dump’s property line, triggered a Ministry of Environment contaminated site assessment.

Regional district chief administrative officer Bill Newell says the landfill, which has been in operation since 1972, has no liner or membrane underneath as would be required today.

“All new landfills have been required to line mixed waste sites for decades now. We’ve been monitoring groundwater on site for years, anticipating leachate,” Newell says in an email.

He says studies will determine the flow of the leachate in the groundwater which will be captured and treated.

Regional district engineer Liisa Bloomfield says a groundwater monitoring well drilled on a residential property downgrade from the landfill tested positive for contaminants indicative of landfill leachate in January.

The leachate migration has been reported to property owners next to the landfill, as well as to the Ministry of Environment and the City of Penticton.

Bloomfield says the next step in the Ministry of Environment Contaminated Site Regulation is to identify the extent of leachate migration. Several wells will be drilled in order to find a “sentry well,” a downstream monitoring well that currently doesn’t show any impact from leachate migration.

The regional district has hired Western Water Associates at a cost of about $136,000 to conduct the investigation work.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad at sarstad@infonews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.