Sunny Farms gives update

TIFFIN --- On Wednesday evening, the League of Women Voters of Tiffin Area hosted Ben Nutter, community engagement manager for WIN Waste Innovation—the parent company of Sunny Farms Landfill. During the meeting, Nutter presented an update regarding the landfill and its current plans, and answered questions from individuals in attendance. Nutter first talked about the landfill's internal flare, which is used for controlling Methane (CH4) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2), as a result of the landfill biodegradation. "We have a really exciting development in our gas treatment system that we've installed. It is a $56 million plus project...Eventually, there will be no internal flare, (and) that gas will all be packaged and used in some sort of setting, which is really important for renewable, green energy initiatives," he said. "One of the things that I like to talk about as it relates to the facility, WIN Waste of Seneca County, is that this company, WIN Waste Innovations, came in and made hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in that property, to clean it up, to make it one of the most technologically advanced landfill's in the state of Ohio, and probably the country," Nutter continued. Nutter then moved on the say that WIN Waste Innovations and Sunny Farms Landfill is "committed to the community," and that he is proud of how far the landfill has come within the past decade. After Nutter's presentation, community members still expressed concerns over the impact the landfill may or may not have on the city's drinking water, how the landfill's water and sediment testing is completed, what the landfill's impacts will be on the environment within the coming years, and if the out of state trash coming into the landfill may cause contamination. "I'm proud of the fact we've done everything we said we would do," Nutter said. "You're entitled to your own opinion, and whether you like landfills or don't like landfills, it's certainly up to you personally. However, you're not entitled to your own set of facts, and the facts will tell us that we're not impacting ground water sources off sight, we're not impacting surface water off sight, we're not impacting soil off sight." Nutter noted that the community should rest assured knowing the landfill is in compliance and that WIN Waste is a "solid environmental partner."