Environmental Services are located downtown in Winona. They inspect wells, help keep us safe from contamination, and investigate solid waste complaints. They also provide educational resources and help to develop sustainable businesses, while reducing the amount and levels of toxicity in the waste we contribute.
It also includes the Winona County Household Hazardous Waste Facility which collects a variety of household items that you do not need anymore and are considered poisonous if released into the environment (what happens when you simply throw it away). Things they collect include:
The Winona County Solid Waste Management Ordinance (May 5, 1998) includes solid waste collection, management and storage, hazardous waste (listed below), water pollution, and a lot more about what their responsibilities are if you are interested in taking a further look at it.
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| http://www.facebook.com/pages/Winona-County-Environmental-Services/138748572809526 |
- fertilizer
- gasoline
- household cleaners
- nail polish
- paint
- expired or unwanted medication
- batteries
- etc.
I have personally been there near the bridge and checked it out. They have very friendly customer service and pamphlets about everything you could need to know about recycling, hazardous wastes and their powerful impacts. They have a small room with shelves of paint thiner, various paint colors, wood polish, etc. and you can take as much as you want whenever you want. It varies every time depending on what people bring in and I would recommend returning items that you know you will not use anymore. It shocks me every time when I hear someone is going to throw away something that not only can be reused, but is also harmful to the environment and our health.
"If you can rip it, it's recyclable!"
If you haven't heard already via WSU e-mail, Winona County has a new system for recycling. The EXCITING NEWS is that if more materials are recycled, the cost or recycling it gets cheaper. Hopefully this makes you feel like recycling that water bottle or pop can you are drinking out of right now. Even better is if everyone in the county of Winona actually recycled, we would be paid! What I mean is that we could receive close to 1/2 of the cost it took to collect the recycled plastics, papers, etc. These new changes were made not too long ago on December 12th last year.
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| http://www.co.winona.mn.us/dwcenterprise/school1000179/FCK/File/New%20Curbside%20Recycling%20Guide.pdf |
"Hazardous Waste means any refuse or discarded materials or combinations of refuse or discarded materials in solid, semi-solid, liquid, or gaseous form which cannot be handled by routine waste management techniques because they pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or other living organisms because of their chemical, biological, or physical properties. Categories of hazardous waste materials includes, but are not limited to, explosives, flammables, oxidizers, poisons, irritants, and corrosives. Hazardous waste does not include sewage sludge and source materials, special nuclear material or by-product material as defined by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954."
In my Environmental Chemistry class with Dr. Franz, I learned that the EPA has a Toxic Release Inventory and by typing in Winona's zip code 55987, you can find out total on- and off-site disposal releases such as:
- Miller Waste Mills Example:
- Lead compounds, which happens to be 3 lbs off-site
- Zinc compounds, 378 lbs get disposed off-site
- TRW Automotive Winona
- We-No-Nah Canoe Inc.
- etc.
What this site will tell you is how many pounds of waste is being disposed by these companies in Winona, what chemicals are being released and where they are being disposed of.
Minnesota has 26 Landfills and we have one right here in Winona called the Winona County Sanitary Landfill. It is a closed landfill and has about 1.2 million cubic yards of waste (according to a 2007 annual report). Our landfill has a leachate, surface water and groundwater monitoring system. It is important to note that they admit monitoring groundwater beneath the actual landfill is quite impossible, but they can trace the direction of flow to a degree.
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| http://www.pca.state.mn.us/index.php/view-document.html?gid=13729 |
Winona County's landfill was actually on the superfund list in the mid 1980s after industrial waste was found and we had to work with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to work on a cleanup program. If you don't know what superfund is I probably will go into more detail in a later blog. You may think Winona is a pretty "green" place to live, but we have had quite a few environmental issues come up in recent years. Just in 2009, Diamond K Dairy had to pay a $15,000 fine for violating state standards and not preventing manure from entering a nearby farm pond. In 2002 we had a serious soil and ground water contamination problem near Gilmore Avenue and Clark's Lane of a chemical called perchloroethylene (PCE).
Cool facts:
Winona County also has GIS services which help to provide current maps, etc.
You can "like" their Facebook page here: Winona County Environmental Services
Read more:
Increasing EPP in Winona
Waste Management
Surf Your Watershed
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