NORTHAMPTON - Landfill expansion opponents used a joint press conference with a Boston environmental organization on toxic waste sites Thursday as a platform to continue pressing city officials to permanently abandon expansion plans.

They kept up the pressure at a Planning Board meeting on a zoning change concerning the landfill Thursday night.

Even though expansion of the Glendale Road facility appears to be on the back burner following a council resolution advising the Board of Public Works to terminate such efforts, opponents note that nothing in the nonbinding resolution removes expansion as a future alternative.

"They are still trying to keep that option open," said Mimi Odgers, chairwoman of Water Not Waste who lives near the landfill at 97 Glendale Road.

Water Not Waste members want the council to go further and approve a proposed zoning change that would prohibit landfills in water supply protection districts. They remain leery that the city will one day resurrect expansion plans after it studies other ways to deal with its trash, as the BPW is instructed to do in the nonbinding resolution.

Click on this map of the state's toxic waste sites to see a larger version
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The change, submitted by citizen petition, is intended to stop expansion rather than shut down the existing landfill, Odgers told the Planning Board during a joint public hearing with the council's Ordinance Committee Thursday night.

In making her case to the board, Odgers focused on the state Department of Environmental Protection's decision in 2007 to grant the city a waiver that would allow it to locate the proposed expansion over the Barnes Aquifer, pending council approval of a special permit. As a condition for granting the waiver, DEP asked the city to create the existing water-supply protection district that currently includes the landfill and surrounding areas.

"In the entire state, the only area with an exemption is the city of Northampton," she said.

By recommending the council approve the proposed zone change, Odgers said the city would fall in line with the rest of the commonwealth.

A difference of opinion emerged at the meeting about whether the zone change would actually block expansion or make the approval process easier, should the city one day move ahead with such a plan.

That debate centers around whether the area where the landfill would be expanded is grandfathered for use as a landfill.

Mark Bobrowski, a Concord lawyer and expert in land use matters hired by the city, opined last week that the landfill and its proposed expansion site are grandfathered because the landfill predates the city's heavy public use requirement.

If that's true, the zone change would not affect the option to expand. Bobrowski also maintains that a special permit is not required to expand the landfill, contrary to the long-held belief that such a permit is required.

Landfill opponents, however, contend that the landfill expansion area is not grandfathered because the land was never used as a regional landfill before the city created a water-supply protection district two years ago.

"Our position remains that the state law does not grandfather the second parcel," said Joanne Bessette, of 228 Sylvester Road.

If that's true, the zoning change would effectively accomplish opponents' overarching goal of stopping expansion. There's also a grandfathering "gray area," should the landfill close for an extended period of time. These issues would ultimately have to be decided in the courts, said Planning Board Chairman Stephen Gilson.

"If we recommend this, it doesn't do what most people want, and that's (to) deal with expansion," said Gilson.

Member Mark Sullivan agreed.

"In some ways, it's not going to matter unless the grandfather issue is decided," he said.

In the end, the board decided to unanimously move the proposal forward to the council with no recommendation. That vote came after an initial motion to support the zoning change failed by a tied vote of 3-3. Members Katharine Baker, Sullivan and Francis Johnson supported recommending the council adopt the zone change, with Marilyn Richards, George Kohout and Gilson voting against.

The Ordinance Committee is expected to make its recommendation at its April 12 meeting before the proposal heads to the City Council later this spring.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day at the Odgers' Glendale Road home, Toxics Action Center unveiled a new report during a small press conference that showed nearly every city and town in Massachusetts has a toxic site within its borders, including the city's landfill.

The Boston group encourages the city to promote zero waste solutions and beef up recycling efforts to extend the life of the landfill and decrease waste. Zero waste is a long-term strategy to reduce to zero the amount of garbage sent to landfills by reusing, recycling and composting materials instead.

"Massachusetts citizens are too often left in the dark about toxics in their neighborhood," Megan Jenny, a western Massachusetts organizer with Toxics Action Center, said at the press conference.

She displayed a map depicting the various sources of toxins statewide, from landfills to incinerators, hazardous waste generators and other sites. She said the report takes much of the data collected from the state Department of Environmental Protection and compiles it into one-stop source of information for residents.

There are more than 500 landfills in Massachusetts, all of which are considered toxic sites whether they are active or capped. The state also has 36 Superfund hazardous waste sites, more than 1,100 hazardous waste generators, 1,900 toxic waste sites of different classifications, and seven incinerators.

Jenny cites Environmental Protection Agency opinions that all landfills will eventually leak, even those that use new technology including double-liners designed to protect the water supply, as a big reason why Toxics Action Center is "urging the City Council to finally make it official and oppose the expansion of the landfill."

Jenny said the leakage is a concern for Northampton because its landfill sits over the Barnes Aquifer.

To view the report and look at the map, visit www.toxicsaction.org.

Chad Cain can be reached at ccain@gazettenet.com.