Ew.

Johnston. Stink lines added. (Map: RI Sea Grant)

I have a problem with Johnston. I admit it. Not the people in Johnston, necessarily; a good friend lives there, and my husband’s cousin, who’s a lovely person, does too. But Johnston also gave us Pauly D., and ruined zeppole day for a bunch of people last year. Also, it stinks. Literally. Johnston is where we Rhode Islanders send our garbage, and it gives the whole town the unmistakable odor of a pay toilet in Times Square. You know you’re passing through Johnston on 295 because that’s when you roll up your windows and hold your breath.

Lately, Johnston has gotten even stinkier. So stinky, in fact, that instead of the usual two or so complaints it receives each month about the smell, the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC  the dump) has gotten close to a hundred in November alone, and some have come from neighboring Cranston.  From ecoRI:

The "active face" of the 100-foot trash pile is getting about half the amount of trash from four years ago, so there is less material to cover the older, exposed and decaying waste… [and] heavy rainfall each of the past two years has flooded the system of pipes in the trash mound. The pipes typically vacuum the methane to a nearby power plant. But the water has slowed the system, allowing the methane to release into the air.

Wait wait wait. There’s a hundred-foot trash pile in Johnston? That’s the width, right? Please tell me they don’t mean it’s ten stories tall. And it’s because we as a state are producing less trash that the smell has gotten worse? That… well, it stinks. Apparently the dump has sent letters of apology and explanation to everyone in Johnston and Cranston, and they say that the solution is going to be to lay a foot of topsoil over all of the garbage, which will happen in a few weeks. This, however, is not fast enough for the state senate. One of Johnston’s state senators, Frank Lombardo, wants it done a whole lot faster, and he’s introduced legislation to make sure the dump never gets that smelly again, ever. From GoLocalProv:

Senator Lombardo will submit legislation to ensure that RIRRC is acting to effectively contain gases and odors on an ongoing basis. The legislation will prohibit the use of construction debris, including wall board, as part of the soil cover that caps the active area of the landfill. Further, the bill would allow independent inspectors access to the landfill on a random basis, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, to ensure they investigate and monitor the material being used as cover.

The legislation will also mandate air quality testing in Johnston and nearby communities, as well as a health-oriented analysis to protect the Johnston residents living closest to the landfill. It would assess a $5,000 per day fine for each day that air quality and odors exceed a certain threshold.

To recap: there is a smelliness threshold in Johnston. It can be smelly, but not too smelly. Then, we’re changing some laws.