Environment notebook

Oil, gas man, hiker appointed to panel

Gov. Asa Hutchinson has appointed Doug Melton, an oil and gas industry consultant and avid hiker, to the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission.

Melton replaces Ann Henry of Fayetteville on the commission.

Henry, a 2013 appointee by Gov. Mike Beebe, served one term on the commission and asked not to be reappointed. She is a former University of Arkansas law professor and Democratic Party activist.

Melton, of Bella Vista, was appointed earlier this month, and his term expires March 29, 2021. His first meeting on the commission was Thursday, when the commission voted to initiate the rule-making process for changes to coal ash management and to appoint members to the state wastewater licensing committee.

Commissioners from Arkansas' four congressional districts, such as Melton, are paid $85 per meeting and receive reimbursement for travel. Commissioners who are agency directors do not receive payment or travel reimbursement.

Melton has a bachelor's degree in geology from what is now Missouri State University, a master's degree in geology from what is now Missouri University of Science and Technology, and a master's degree in civil engineering from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He worked in the oil and gas industry for most of his career and has spent time in Western states in coal exploration.

Melton retired from full-time work after working with Southwestern Energy in the Fayetteville Shale in March 2016. Since then, he has worked as a consultant and hiked the high points in every county in every state that surrounds his native state of Missouri.

$12.9M contract let to clean up landfill

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has sent KOLB Grading LLC of Weldon Spring, Mo., a notice that it has approved the company's bid to clean up a troubled Baxter County landfill.

The company bid $12.9 million for the work, which will be paid for by the state through the landfill post-closure trust fund.

The NABORS (North Arkansas Board of Regional Sanitation) landfill hasn't accepted trash since November 2012 after the Ozark Mountain Regional Solid Waste District's board voted to default on a $12.3 million bond issue from Bank of the Ozarks that enabled the board to purchase the landfill. Accepting trash was the landfill's only source of revenue.

Since August 2014, after the district said it ran out of money, the department has operated the landfill and removed leachate using funds that the district put up in financial assurance, about $1.7 million. Those funds were intended in the permit to be for the closure of the landfill.

The state originally advertised a request for bids last fall but decided to rework the request after receiving only bids it said weren't "viable."

Department spokesman Kelly Robinson said some changes were made in the second request this spring, including a change in the cap for the landfill from a topsoil and grass cap to a cap made of geomembrane, an engineered turf and a specialized sand infill.

Metro on 05/30/2017

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