Groundwater contamination at a landfill sited on fractured carbonate and shale

Abstract

Leachate from the Upper Ottawa Street landfill site has contaminated groundwater in the underlying fractured dolomite and shale bedrock. The landfill received domestic and industrial waste from about 1954 to 1978. An extensive network of multilevel groundwater monitoring devices provided a detailed, three-dimensional view of the contaminant distributions. The leachate was lacking in reliable indicator parameters such as chlorinated solvents. Background groundwater quality was variable and often very poor. Many of the inorganic and organic species present in the leachate at high concentration were also present in some background groundwaters and often at equally high concentrations. In order to identify those groundwaters which were leachate-impacted, a number of tests were applied to the chemical data. These included a test utilizing 14 chemical characteristics of leachate, and statistical tests using descriptive principal components analysis, descriptive correspondence analysis and a fuzzy cluster analysis. The statistical tests attempted to identify a pattern in the chemical data consistent with contamination superimposed upon a mixture between a recently recharged, dilute groundwater endmember and a much older, concentrated groundwater endmember. Only sporadic leachate impact was recognized beyond 100 m from the landfill. Impact to the east indicates leachate migration towards the escarpment in the direction of the regional hydraulic gradient. Occasional impact to the southeast may indicate leachate migration across the regional gradient, perhaps in a major fracture network oriented northwest-southeast under the site. The rather minor impact of this landfill upon groundwater quality probably reflects both a low concentration of easily recognized contaminants emanating from the landfill and a very poor groundwater quality in the sedimentary bedrock.