Palomar Airport: At Last: A County Landfill Hazard Study, Blog 63

MLK: Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

For 25 years, the County has put up Palomar Airport projects.  In 2012, the FAA studied the planned California Pacific Airlines [CPA] new service impacts pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA].  Even now the County is assessing the CPA California Environmental Quality Act [CEQA] impacts. [See Blog 62].  

Neither the County nor the FAA in 25 years of NEPA and CEQA documents analyzed the safety or environmental Palomar problems related to operating large aircraft next to Palomar methane-emitting and fire-plagued landfills. 

Prior blogs 2, 16, 26, 27, 50, 51 detailed some dangers.  Large, fast aircraft carrying several thousand gallons of aviation fuel landing within a few hundred feet of closed landfills create safety and environmental hazards.  A new County report paints a picture worse than I expected.

After reading this blog, decide if the County and FAA hid Palomar risks for 25 years and complied with CEQA and NEPA when evaluating Palomar projects.

The County October 2013 Landfill Analysis

At last. The County has finally realized it has no chance of extending the Palomar Runway unless it faces the Palomar landfill problems the County has many times ignored.  Excerpts from the County report – obtained by public record request – are below.  [See SCS Engineers October 15, 2013 File No. 01213281.00.]  Italicized language is actual report language.

• SCS Engineers was retained to evaluate the possible environmental impacts of a potential aircraft crash into the landfill cover at the site.

• This report … assumes that the impact from an aircraft crash into the landfill cover would result in uncovering buried solid waste materials and damage to the GCCS [Landfill Gas collection and control system].

• The airport is partially located over a closed landfill site, which operated as a Class III municipal solid waste disposal facility between 1962 and 1975 … [T]he decomposition of organic waste … buried in the landfill produces … methane.  Methane is a principle component of natural gas and is explosive at concentrations of 5 percent and 15 percent by volume in air.

• Identification of Hazards.  Problems that could result from a plane crashing into a Palomar closed landfill on departure or on approach include:

• Spillage of flammable liquids such as Jet fuel: Ignition of the jet fuel … upon impact could also be highly probable.

• Burning of solids: Post-crash fires can result in burning of … aircraft batteries and electrical equipment, engines, tires, wheels, pathogenic substances, radioactive materials, and metals …  and fiber-reinforced polymer composites of the airfield fuselage and wings. … At a landfill site, a violent aircraft crash ground impact … may also result in an impact crater that exposes the buried solid waste …. Post-crash fires can then initiate surface fires as the landfill gas is now free to vent directly into the atmosphere. Once a surface fire ignites, it can … begin to burn the exposed waste materials and spread down into the subsurface solid waste. Subsurface landfill fires, once started, can continue indefinitely as they tend to create a natural draft … allowing them to travel and spread horizontally and deeper into the waste mass.   For this reason, smoldering solid waste materials that are below grade can be difficult to control and extinguish.  Subsurface landfill fires will damage below grade GCCS components while surface fire can damage above grade GCCS components.

• Spillage of cryogenic liquid:  Cryogenic liquids, such as liquid nitrogen and liquid helium, … are used as cooling agents to reduce engine temperatures …. These liquids are classified as ‘compressed gases’ on the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System.  … [E]ven low quantities of cryogenic liquids can expand into large volumes of gases …. If not stored in containers with adequate pressure-relief devices, enormous pressures can build up…. The impact from an aircraft crash can cause a sudden, rapid increase in the internal pressure of the container.  Results can range from damage to surrounding equipment, structures, explosions, called ‘boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion,’ to asphyxiation hazards.

• Pressurized liquid and/or vapor release: Aircraft utilize a variety [of] hydraulic and pneumatic accumulators, which contain pressurized air or fluids….  In the event of an aircraft crash, the accumulators can rupture and lead to sudden discharge of large amounts of pressurized fluids, resulting in destruction of property and possibly, injury to persons ….

• Pipe rupture: Impact from an aircraft crash may result in extensive damage to nearby above/below-grade utility lines.  Damage or rupture of a buried water, gas or storm drain line, could contaminate nearby soils and water bodies.  Emission releases from pipes could severely compromise the air quality and even cause explosions, depending on the contents of the carrier pipes.

Next Week: More SCS Engineers’ Palomar landfill hazard report disclosures including Palomar Site-Specific Hazards.