Local health director says Reworld/Covanta remains in violation; company disputes testing results

Marco Palmeri, director of health for the Bristol-Burlington Health District, told the City Council on Tuesday that the health district has treated noise from the Reworld (formerly Covanta) waste facility as a long-running nuisance and has used legal and administrative procedures to try to mitigate the impacts. “Never has anyone from the city of Bristol … interrupted or interfered with my ability to do my job,” Marco Palmeri said. “Legally, statutorily, it's my responsibility to mitigate any issues that are causing injury, disease, or mortality in our community.” Palmeri summarized the sequence: the health district issued an order after documenting noise impacts, the facility did not appeal and later told the district it had corrected the issue, and the facility has since told media outlets it spent about $2.1 million on noise mitigation and believes it now meets applicable standards. The health district disputes that account. “We have done many, many sound studies over periods of days and days,” Palmeri said, adding that district tests are longitudinal and that Reworld’s consultant ran several-hour tests. “Never have our results indicated that Reworld was in compliance.” The health district offered Reworld the option to hire a third-party, independent acoustical engineer to resolve the discrepant results; according to Palmeri, Reworld has not agreed to that approach. Palmeri also said the district’s legal work and appeals response incur costs and that the board of the health district must approve any large additional expenditures; the board will meet in September to consider allocation of funds to continue enforcement actions. Council members asked whether testing was announced in advance and whether a third-party test could be run without giving the company advance notice; Palmeri said the district would seek to control testing conditions so the company could not tailor operations for a known test. Why it matters: Residents have reported sleep disruption and community nuisance from the facility for over a year; the health district treats the matter as an ongoing public-health and nuisance enforcement case. The dispute centers on differing testing methodologies, the appropriate standard for determining compliance, and whether a neutral, independent test is acceptable to both parties. What’s next: The health district board will meet in September and decide whether to allocate funds to pursue further administrative or legal remedies; the district has proposed using an independent acoustical engineer to arbitrate test-method differences but said Reworld has not accepted that option.