South Jersey retirement community residents want an Atlantic County landfill closed over persistent odor issues

An Atlantic County landfill has long emitted harmful gases at levels that violate state and federal law, endangering the health of residents of a nearby retirement community, a federal lawsuit alleges.

Residents of Absecon’s Bel Aire Lakes, a community for people who are 55 and older, claim in the lawsuit that the Atlantic County Utilities Authority’s landfill in Egg Harbor Township exposes them to high levels of hydrogen sulfide, causing persistent nausea and breathing issues.

The lawsuit, filed last month in U.S. District Court in Camden by Philadelphia law firm Cozen O’Conner, is seeking an injunction to stop operations at the landfill.

Over the past 10 years, the landfill’s gases have frequently produced strong odors of rotten eggs and feces in the retirement community, often at night, “when the landfill disposes of its putrescible waste,” the lawsuit alleges.

Bel Aire Lakes, which consists of 125 homes, and the landfill are roughly 250 feet apart at their closest point, according to the complaint. More than 65 current and former homeowners in the retirement community have joined the lawsuit.

“On hundreds of days and nights over the past 10 years, continuing to the present day, the BAL Residents are overwhelmed by malodorous H2S gas emitted by the landfill,” the lawsuit states. As a result, residents say they have experienced health issues ranging from nausea and vomiting to respiratory irritation, difficulty sleeping, and depression.

“You can’t sit outside and enjoy a nice evening with a fire roasting marshmallows because of the odors there,” one unnamed resident said in the lawsuit. “You just can’t. It permeates inside the home, and the smell lingers and lingers, and long after the odor is gone, eventually, if you’re lucky, it will clear out.”

Residents near the landfill have filed around 1,100 complaints with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in the last decade, according to the lawsuit. But despite those complaints, the suit states, little has been done to address the issue. Instead, the landfill has expanded a number of times, increasing emissions and odor issues. The lawsuit alleges those expansions were made without notifying nearby residents.

“The elderly residents of the Bel Air Lakes retirement community filed suit only after they had exhausted all options and were desperate,” attorney Peter J. Fontaine said in a statement. He said they had complained to the utilities authority and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to no avail. “The air pollution events continue unabated. The agencies which are supposed to protect them from pollution have left them to fend for themselves.”

The emissions problem has gone on so long, the lawsuit alleges, that many residents are unable to sell their homes and move away because “there is a stigma associated with” the Bel Aire Lakes community.

“It is now widely known that the community frequently is impacted by malodors from the landfill,” the lawsuit states. “For most of the residents, selling is not viable.”

The Atlantic County Utilities Authority, meanwhile, has called the lawsuit’s claims “misleading.” Its Egg Harbor Township landfill, the authority said in a statement, is “highly regulated” by not only the NJDEP, but also the Atlantic County Department of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency. Its operations, the authority added, “are fully transparent.”

“The ACUA and its counsel intend to vigorously defend against these accusations in court by using facts and evidence, not false and sensationalist allegations,” the authority said. “The ACUA remains committed to providing the highest quality waste management services to our community.”

A hearing in the case is scheduled for June 17.