June 9, 2026
By Tim Hundt
VERNON COUNTY, Wis. — Vernon County’s interim solid waste administrator told supervisors this week they must decide soon whether to support the county landfill through a difficult financial stretch or move to sell the operation. He warned that years of delays on an expansion plan and county management decisions have left the facility in a “no-win” position even as local demand rises.
At a June 9 meeting of the Vernon County Infrastructure Committee, longtime landfill manager-turned-interim director Gail Frie said the county’s landfill and recycling system remains structurally sound and potentially lucrative but cannot stay in limbo while airspace is tight, staff is aging, and the state Department of Natural Resources continues to question the county’s expansion feasibility report.
Frie may be the interim manager of the facility but he has a long history with the Vernon County Landfill and with the industry. He helped site and build the landfill in the 1990s when the DNR began requiring local governments to close dumps that were largely unregulated. Frie managed the Vernon County facility for 17 years before leaving to manage Monroe County’s landfill until retirement. Frie came back to help out at the Vernon County landfill a couple years ago on a part-time basis and became interim manager when current manager, Stacie Sanborn, took a leave of absence for health reasons. Frie said he came out of retirement to stabilize the operation but warned that without clear direction from the County Board, it will be difficult to recruit staff or plan for the next decade of service.
“The way I see it, Vernon County only has two viable options, either support the solid waste department short-term financially, consider a short-term loan and allow it to operate as a business, or put the total operation up for sale,” Frie said. “Vernon County has millions invested in the solid waste recycling programs, and it would be very difficult for one to survive without the other.”
Storm debris and a filling landfill
Frie opened his report by describing how recent hail damage in Westby sent a rush of material to the county landfill, underscoring both its importance and its capacity squeeze.
He told supervisors that in the days after the storm, contractors and residents poured in with damaged shingles and debris, quickly eating up limited airspace.
“The Westby hailstorm reinforces the need for a local landfill, but it’s filling us up very fast,” Frie said. “Last Thursday, everyone wanted to beat the rain. We had more than 50 scale transactions, and all out-of-the-area contractors were required to pay for each load when they delivered it, because these are out-of-state storm chasers never seen again. With weigh-in and weigh-out, this is a new truck on the scale every five minutes all day long.”
He said that pace does not include residents who bring in their own loads and recyclables.
“I’m forced to try and find reasons to refuse loads, and I’ve refused a number of loads, because I want to save room for Vernon County residents, which is three or four 16-foot dumpsters a day,” Frie said. “That just blows my mind, because when I was here, we never took from citizens, but that’s a good cash load right there.”
Frie said the county technically has a DNR permit to transfer waste out of the current building to another disposal site, but the building is fully used for cardboard and mixed paper recycling, and the department does not have the staff or money to reload and haul waste elsewhere.
“We are short-handed and don’t have labor available to do this, and even if we could do it, the reloading, the trucking and another disposal site would almost double our cost of disposal,” he said.
Instead, he suggested that, if necessary, the county could arrange for its regular haulers to take waste directly to another landfill and then reimburse the extra tipping cost up to $10 a ton for municipal contracts.
“The cheapest and best option would be to have our regular haulers take it to another disposal site and negotiate a system to reimburse them for the increased tip fee, capped at $10 a ton, and only contracted municipal accounts would be eligible,” Frie said. “For 1,000 tons, that’s $10,000. I don’t think it would be anywhere near 5,000 tons, but that’s $50,000. That is pennies compared to what it would cost us to hire somebody to transfer it ourselves.”
A years long expansion effort and rising costs
Frie said the county is on its third feasibility study for expanding the Vernon County landfill and that what began as a relatively straightforward project has become a prolonged and expensive process under DNR review.
“This is the third feasibility study done on the site. The first two feasibility studies were very positive,” Frie said. “I did a feasibility in Monroe County right before I left, and it cost $400,000. The county asked for permission to start the feasibility in 2018 and got permission to proceed in 2020, so we started two years too late. The first draft went to DNR at a cost of $375,000, and now we’re almost at $1 million with nothing to show for it.”
Supervisor John Pedretti said from the board’s perspective the process has been confusing and opaque.
“As a board member and a committee member, we didn’t have any idea what’s happening,” Pedretti said. “It seems like we’ve been spinning our wheels for the last six months or a year. The longer it goes, the less support you’re going to have for it, so it needs to either move or stop.”
The DNR recently told county officials it has not received a formal submittal on the expansion since December 2024 and issued an “incompleteness” letter in March 2025 that has not yet been resolved, according to information read into the record by Supervisor Martha Olson.
Olson said that language suggests not all of the delay lies with state regulators.
“I’m just wondering, we talked about the engineer being slow, but maybe some of it’s on our end,” Olson said. “The way this letter looks, I don’t know.”
Frie said he had not seen the full DNR document and asked for a copy, telling the committee he intends to call both the consulting engineer (SEH) and state staff directly.
Frie’s criticism of the DNR process
Beyond schedule and cost, Frie criticized how the DNR has handled the county’s expansion application, suggesting the project is being delayed internally despite broader support within the agency. He told supervisors that during a recent unannounced DNR compliance inspection, he and the inspector walked the entire landfill and discussed the feasibility review.
“There were two areas of concern. One was the side seeps, and the other was that the open uncovered area was too large, which I admitted right up front,” Frie said. “We passed in flying colors.”
Frie said the inspector acknowledged that most DNR staff working on the project are satisfied but that one internal holdout continues to stall the process.
“The inspector and I had a good discussion. We walked the entire landfill,” Frie said. “He admitted there’s one person inside DNR installing this project. Everybody else is satisfied with it.”
Frie also questioned whether a county-run facility faces higher hurdles than a private company when seeking approval. County Board Chair Lorn Goede contrasted Vernon County’s experience with La Crosse County, which has already built and begun filling a new cell.
“La Crosse started their proposal for a new landfill expansion, and they’re filling already,” Goede said. “Our time frame wasn’t that much off. We just have a lot more opposition here, and it is frustrating.”
Frie suggested a private owner with greater revenue potential might find a smoother path through the DNR process.
“A purchaser is not going to worry about the profit-and-loss statement; they’re going to worry about their return on investment,” Frie said. “A private company can double that $30 million with a stroke of a pen. We can’t. We’re under state law.”
He said the same volume of waste and airspace could be more attractive to a private firm that can raise fees or bundle services.
“Basically, the way I see it, the expansion creates $30 million in revenue at today’s market rate,” said Frie.
Recapturing lost volume
Because the county loosened their own requirements that haulers licensed in the county were required to haul their volumes to the Vernon County facility one the largest haulers built a transfer station and county volumes feel from about 20,000 ton per year to less than 10,000 ton per year. Supervisor Martha Olson pointed out that the city of Viroqua recently decided to send its garbage to GFL Environmental instead of the county facility.
“But with Viroqua now going to GFL that really hurt our bottom line,” said Olson.
Frie acknowledged the financial hit but argued the drop in volume actually provides a short-term benefit by preserving the rapidly dwindling room in the current landfill cells.
“It hurt our bottom line but it helped our airspace savings right,” said Frie.
Looking ahead to the proposed expansion Frie told the committee he is highly confident the county will win back its lost municipal customers once the new space is permitted and open for business. He recalled a previous meeting he and Solid Waste Administrator Stacie Sanborn attended with the Viroqua City Council.
“I have no concern that they will not come back when we expand because when Stacie and I went to the city council when the management was talking very strongly about going not using the county landfill the city council voted unanimously to send it to the county landfill,” said Frie. “We have strong local support and actually our municipalities are our best customers.”
Frie emphasized that the towns and villages within Vernon County are the lifeblood of the solid waste operation.
“We do not want to screw them over,” said Frie. “They are the ones that kept us operating without using any tax money for over 30 years.”
Tipping fees and competitive advantage
When challenged by the committee about the probability of having to raise tipping fees Frie told the committee that the county has always maintained a price advantage over neighboring facilities.
“I haven’t got dug into that but you know realistically everybody else is at $72 $73 we’re at $65 (per ton),” said Frie. “I was at $50 for all those years when everybody else was at $60 so we’re always six to $10 cheaper”.
Supervisor John Pedretti asked Frie to explain the reason behind that historical price difference.
“Is that because we’re more efficient or because we’re not running such a big operation?” asked Pedretti.
Frie credited the lower rates directly to the cross training and efficiency of the county workforce handling both the solid waste and recycling programs. He explained that county employees are required to handle multiple different tasks across the entire facility.
“More efficient because we have recycling and we have solid waste and the landfill,” said Frie. “And guess what the job description for my people covers all of it. And some of these part-time people are not really happy the jobs they get assigned because they’re not always the easiest and most pleasant jobs but everybody has to do every every job.”
Frie said the county is also more competitive because state law requires them to set fees at the cost to cover operational expenses and not to make a profit.
“We answer to the taxpayers and not stock holders,” said Frie.
Staffing strain
Frie said staffing is another major concern, as the department relies heavily on older and part-time workers.
A key longtime employee recently announced plans to retire at the end of July.
“The position will be hard to fill if the county board is not willing to commit,” Frie said. “Right now … you’ve got an old folks operation out there. I’m 76 years old.”
Next steps
Frie said his immediate need is clarity from the County Board.
“Point is, need a decision real soon,” he said. “A reassurance that the operation is going to continue or not.”
Lawler said the committee will need updated financials, airspace data and a clear understanding of the DNR process before making a recommendation. Jacobson directed staff to bring those items back for discussion next month, along with the possibility of issuing a request for proposals if the county considers selling.
Frie also shared the county’s 2002 solid waste management plan he drafted with committee members.
“It tells a good story and helps you understand what we’re dealing with,” he said.
He closed by acknowledging the county’s investment and the difficult decision ahead.
“It’s hard just to kiss that million dollars goodbye,” Frie said.
“But if we’re not going to get the outcome we need, I’d rather cut bait now,” said Lawler.
“We need a decision very soon of how to move forward,” said Frie. “Either support the solid waste department short-term financially and allow it to operate as a business, or put the total operation up for sale.”
Add comment