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Beyond the Water Department’s Biosolids Recycling Center … Down the road from one of the city’s automobile impoundment lots …
Across the road from a shantytown built by a community of squatters sits a smoldering pile of who-knows-what.
The smoking mound — actually a subsurface fire burning on city-owned land south of the Platt Bridge — is the subject of a pending investigation by the city Managing Director’s Office, and has some residents questioning if it is the culprit behind a foul breeze wafting over parts of South Philly.
The unattributable stench has been a popular topic among environmental activist Gloria Inverso and her neighbors for the last few months.
The smell had become so putrid two weeks ago, Inverso said, that she opened the back door of her home near Ninth and Reed streets and it hit her "like an ice-cream headache right between the eyes." It reminded her of when her grandparents brought home a freshly killed chicken from the market and burned off the remaining feathers not plucked by the butcher.
Inverso, president of the South Philadelphia Environmental Action Coalition, reported the smell to the Health Department’s Air Management Services hotline on Feb. 20. The next day, an inspector told her the Health Department was investigating an underground fire at a landfill a few miles south of her neighborhood as a possible cause, she said.
Inverso also was told the Fire Department had been at the scene several times, dousing the landfill with water. It has even been reported that the Fire Department leaves a hose on-site near the dump to save time during frequent visits. (Battalion Chief William Doty of the Fire Department’s Hazardous Materials Unit referred questions to the mayor’s press office.)
Inverso said she is surprised that the fire is still burning after a dampening dose of winter.
"We had so much snow and so much rain recently that you would have thought the ground would have been saturated and would have put it out," she said.
Smoke was still rising from the area as of Tuesday.
Inverso said she is bothered this situation is just now getting attention.
"You don’t want to sound melodramatic," she said, "but how much more is out there that we don’t know about?"
Health Department inspectors have continuously monitored the odor since the earliest complaints from residents, said spokesperson Jeff Moran, but have not been able to pinpoint the origin.
"They still suspect that the odor has multiple sources and that includes possible sources in New Jersey," he said.
According to the mayor’s press office, next week the Managing Director’s Office is expected to release a report on the dump ordered during the tenure of former Managing Director Estelle Richman. Part of the report will address safety issues.
An official from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection — one of the agencies collaborating on the study — said preliminary indications are that the fire is feeding on decomposing construction debris.
"There doesn’t appear to be anything toxic," said Joe Ferry, spokesperson at PADEP’s Southeast Regional Office. While he was unable to list the exact contents of the dump, he speculated it included flammable items, possibly wood or paper products.
PADEP has known about the dump since the late 1980s, Ferry said. An estimated 45,000 tons of debris reaches 10 feet deep and is piled 10 feet above ground level, he said.
Harold Emerson, the owner of a demolition company, reportedly had permission from the city to dump materials at the site between 1989 and 1990. During that time, however, the state cited Emerson with environmental violations. A Common Pleas Court judge reportedly fined him $5 million and ordered him to clean up the site in 1991. But Emerson told the courts he was financially unable and the landfill remains in the same condition today.
The fire appears to be caused by spontaneous combustion, Ferry said, which naturally occurs under the right conditions when organic materials decompose.
The National Fire Protection Association reports that biological degradation of materials like wood produces heat. If that heat cannot dissipate, which frequently is the case with debris buried in a landfill, subterranean temperatures can reach 160 degrees. In the presence of oxygen, temperatures can reach 572 degrees, resulting in an open flame.
Ferry has heard anecdotal accounts of flames rising from the dump, but no one has reported such an occurrence directly to PADEP. During a trip to the site in early January, he said he saw "light, wispy white smoke in about two or three spots."
It’s not surprising these flare-ups have gone largely undetected by most of the public for years. Not only is the dump camouflaged by weeds and trees — it happens to be situated adjacent to several steaming piles owned by the city.
A trip to the debris pile requires a drive south on Interstate-95 to the Bartram Avenue exit, followed by a right turn on Penrose Ferry Avenue. The fire is contained within a 2.8-acre pie-slice of property near the intersection of Hog Island and Fort Mifflin roads, but after turning onto Penrose Ferry Avenue, the journey continues without the benefit of any visible street signs. The road runs parallel to the base of the Platt Bridge before bending right at the city impound lot.
There are signs indicating that pipelines feeding the Sunoco Oil Refinery, just to the north, are buried in the area. Spokesperson John McCann said Sunoco is investigating how close the company’s pipelines are to the fire and whether it poses any danger.
After 100 yards, the street meets with another, making a V-shaped intersection. The right-hand passage was flooded and frozen Monday, making it impassable. The street to the left leads past land belonging to a construction company and then to the squatters’ commune.
Suddenly, a twangy banjo strumming the theme from Deliverance seems appropriate.
The village is populated with small rectangular buildings. Each is capped with a makeshift roof supported by slanted walls made from random pieces that look as if they came from demolished homes. The "properties" are divided by fencing and have small yards. One resident has cultivated what could be a garden, were it not covered in snow. The same shack has a red Toyota 4-Runner parked on the road in front of it and a black mailbox mounted streetside.
Immediately across the street sits the smoldering dump. Distracted by the shantytown, it’s easy to miss, but the smell is not. The whole area stinks like the trash bin outside a fish market.
The best view of the fire requires a hike halfway across the Platt Bridge. From that perch and with a careful eye, one can see wisps of white smoke, as Ferry described, emanating from a dark patch of ground where the snow has melted. SPR
