Waste transfer station on the Patuxent River

As Prince George's County decides to place a county -wide transfer station one mile from a major waterway of Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay, I wonder how the decision squares with the "green" ideas of some of the county's leaders.

From the US EPA we get some of the ideas of problems the site will bring to the environment and ecosystem of the Patuxent river:

1. Avoid dispersing pollutants into the public air, including diesel fuel particulates, carbon monoxide, other gases, airborne microbes, dusts, etc. Naturally the county claims there will be non of this because we will use a mysterious technology to control air pollutants

2. Avoid discharging pollutants into the public sewers We are told that we will be using the county sewer treatment facility and system

3. Avoid creating breeding sites in discharge sewers for bacteria immune to current medicines We can hardly wait to see the details

4. Avoid collecting any hazardous waste in the waste stream at a transfer station. We are going to look into every bag that comes on site; a sure thing

5. Protect the transfer station neighbors from explosions and fires in the waste at the transfer stations. Wow bet they forgot to tell us about this possibility!

6. Avoid spills of hydraulic fluid, fuel and other liquids from trucks and machinery at transfer stations. Of course we are right next to the Patuxent River so who would notice?

7. Contain and collect such spills. Excellent idea. let's do this next to a floodplain to show our collective environmentally sound advanced cutting edged thinking

8. Assure that the transfer station has adequate space to do all of the necessary supporting work needed now and in the future to handle the trucks' parking, maneuvering, fueling, weighing, cleaning, repair, storage as well as all of the other activities at the transfer station.

9. Detecting and immediately controlling nuisances associated with the transfer station. Really?

Given all of these considerations building this next to wetlands and parkland in the low lying ground of a major river way on a site prone to air inversions is our county's environmentally savvy political leadership's idea of green thinking