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Austin Road Land 1 E ion Project EIR Comments and Res nse * >� 1 Po Responses to California Regional Water Quality Control Board.Central Valley Region December 17, 1999 Letter Response to Comment 1: The RWQCB previously reviewed and approved the design for the proposed landfill expansion when it issued Waste Discharge Requirements Order No. 96-75. As described in that Order, the proposed landfill expansion would be lined and built to current standards. With respect to the existing landfill leachate issues, the regulatory oversight and associated mitigation of the Austin Road Landfill has been shared by the California Integrated Waste Management Board and the Regional Water Quality Control Board. Both these boards have had an active part in assessing and stipulating requirements to address those areas of concern relating to the groundwater pollution generated by the existing landfill. In the last three to four years there have been a number of studies and mitigation measures completed to address both Boards' concerns. These are described in the DSEIR, pp. 96-99. The 1996 leachate discovery was mitigated, as approved by the RWQCB, with an interceptor trench to capture the leachate by November 1996. The leachate was collected in a 12,000-gallon storage tank and collected when near full for off-site treatment at a licensed TDS facility by Ramos Environmental. In 1997 after the first reported detection of detectable PCE in the private wells, the City of Stockton committed to supplying bottled water to all downgradient well owners where there has been a detection of any VOCs above the drinking water standards. These wells are approximately 3,000 feet or more downgradient of the landfill boundary and are on a stipulated monitoring program. The City purchased one of the properties,removing the well from service, and continues to supply bottled water to the owners of the other private well. By October 1998, in response to the higher than permissible gas detection's reported in the northeastern part of the landfill, and with the approval of the Waste Management Board, the City installed and brought on-line an additional 12 vapor extraction wells to the existing gas collection system. The groundwater extraction and treatment system was also modified in 1998 to extract more contaminated groundwater. The lead regulatory agency overseeing the impact analyses and mitigation of the offsite contaminated groundwater-leachate-plume, the RWQCB, is currently in the process of , reviewing the 1999 "Austin Road Landfill Groundwater Corrective Action Engineering Feasibility Study Report" to determine what additional augmentation of the groundwater extraction and treatment system is needed. In order to assure consideration of this issue,the following is added to Mitigation K-6: "(b) The City of Stockton, San Joaquin County, RWQCB and IWMB should meet to determine if one or more of the existing landfill units should be closed prior to approval of the expansion." 42