Mayor files lawsuit against landfill

JOHNSTON, R.I. (WPRI) - The Town of Johnston filed a lawsuit Wednesday as part of the ongoing effort to crackdown on a rotten odor coming from the Central Landfill.

Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena wants the courts to order the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, which runs the landfill and Broad Rock Energy, which produces energy at the landfill, to eliminate the odor and keep it from returning.

"They've destroyed the quality of life for our community, they have destroyed real estate values, in my opinion they have destroyed the economic development of our town - which it was booming," the mayor said.

He continued, "I think the courts have to intervene and have to order them that this should never happen again, and that [they] have to fix this problem immediately because, quite frankly, it still stinks," Mayor Polisena said Wednesday.

"If you go to different parts of the town, it stinks."

As the trash at the landfill decomposes it produces hydrogen sulfide, a gas that smells like rotten eggs. Normally that gas is either converted into electricity or burned off, but recently there have been problems collecting the gas in wells before it escapes into the air.

Rhode Island Resource Recovery is now drilling additional gas-collection wells.

"We're all frustrated that it isn't fixed yet, but we're doing the right things and it's going to be fixed," insisted Resource Recovery Director Michael O'Connell on Tuesday.

But Mayor Polisena says he is far from satisfied.

"It's been ninety days ... ninety days. And we were told that by the middle of December it would be corrected."

Eyewitness News has learned it could be weeks before the lawsuit is heard in Providence Superior Court.