A central Illinois landfill won't be allowed to accept certain types of chemical waste without getting approval from local governments under a settlement.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan says Clinton Landfill Inc. has agreed to a consent decree prohibiting the landfill from taking waste such as toxic PCBs. The landfill will also be barred from accepting manufactured gas plant wastes.
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were used in products such as paints and fluorescent lights. They were banned in 1979 after it was found they can cause cancer and damage to nervous and reproductive systems.
The landfill in DeWitt County had tried since 2007 to get state and federal permits to store PCBs. Local governments banded together to prevent it because the landfill sits over the Mahomet Aquifer.
