Feb. 9, 2026
VIROQUA, Wis. — Negotiations between Vernon County and the Town of Viroqua regarding a host agreement for a proposed landfill expansion hit a stalemate Jan. 23 as town representatives accused county officials of stripping essential protections from a draft contract while county supervisors argued the town was attempting to duplicate state regulations.
The friction centers on a massive gap between the expectations of the two bodies regarding a facility that is rapidly running out of space. While the county pursues a technical permit from the state to expand the landfill, the Town of Viroqua is exercising its legal right to negotiate the terms under which that facility operates within its borders.
Location and Size
The Vernon County Landfill is located at S3705 County Highway LF in Viroqua. It currently operates as a 9.5-acre sanitary landfill on about a 250 acre site that was originally constructed in the early 1990s to consolidate disposal efforts across the county.
Expansion Details and Impact
The proposed expansion would add about five acres to that footprint and an additional 427,000-plus cubic yards of space, which equals just over 340,000 tons of airspace. The expanded footprint would allow the space to expand horizontally and vertically, if approved.
Approval of the expansion is critical for the facility’s survival, as the current landfill is projected to be full within about a year. The county currently undertaking an airspace study to get a closer estimate of how much airspace is left and when they are expected to be full. Without the expansion, the county has been forced to negotiate diverting waste to La Crosse or Monroe counties to conserve the little remaining airspace.
The Dual Approval Process
Under Wisconsin law, the creation or expansion of a landfill requires two parallel approval tracks. The first is a technical review by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to ensure the site is environmentally sound.
Vernon County is currently in the feasibility report stage of this technical track. The county submitted a feasibility report to the DNR but received a notice of incompleteness requiring additional geological data. County officials are currently preparing a feasibility addendum to answer those questions.
During the meeting, officials noted that the county recently drilled an additional monitoring well and met with the DNR to review geological narratives. Once the final addendum is submitted, officials estimate it will take approximately 10 months for the DNR to issue a final feasibility determination. If approved, the county must then submit a Plan of Operations for a second round of approval.
The second track is the local negotiation process overseen by the Waste Facility Siting Board. This allows affected municipalities to negotiate a binding contract with the landfill operator to mitigate social and economic impacts.
The Town Host Agreement
The Town Host Agreement is the legal contract resulting from these local negotiations. It typically covers issues outside the DNR’s technical scope including hours of operation, truck routes, litter control, property value guarantees and direct payments to the town to offset the burden of hosting the facility. The town does not have the power to veto the landfill’s existence, it can only negotiate these operational terms. It is not clear what was in the original town host agreement when the landfill was sited in the Viroqua township since that was reportedly a “handshake” agreement between town and county.
If the county and the town cannot reach a negotiated settlement either party may petition the Waste Facility Siting Board for binding arbitration. In arbitration both sides submit a final offer and the board must select one offer in its entirety without modification. This “winner take all” dynamic is designed to force both parties toward the middle to avoid the risk of having their entire proposal rejected.
Negotiations Stall
During the Jan. 23 meeting Town Attorney Anders Helquist expressed frustration with the county’s response to their initial proposal.
“We waited five months and we got a 15 page agreement back,” said Helquist. “We didn’t go off or try to work off of the template that we had offered. It went back to the new, new document.”
A primary point of contention was the town’s demand for specific language protecting local groundwater and providing recourse if the landfill’s containment fails. The town’s committee argued that because the landfill sits atop fractured bedrock known as karst topography standard state regulations are insufficient to protect neighboring wells. Helquist pushed for contractual stop gaps to protect residents in the event that state regulators are incorrect about the site’s geological stability.
“If you’re very confident that the DNR is correct, that your geologists are correct, then there should be no problem and no cost to the county to put in some protections in the event there is a failure,” said Helquist. “We want those water protections in there.”
County Pushback: “We’re Trusting Everyone Around Us”
The discussion frequently veered into a debate over the safety of the expansion itself, blurring the lines between the host agreement negotiation and the separate DNR permitting process. County supervisors and staff maintained that the DNR is the ultimate authority on environmental safety and that additional contract language was redundant.
Supervisor Paul Wilson argued that the county pays the DNR to monitor the site and that the facility has a 30-year track record of compliance.
“It isn’t on us. It’s the DNR. It’s been in place for 30 years, and all of the test results are public,” said Wilson. “We’re trusting everyone around us. There’s a group of trust. Like you trust your building inspector where you built your house.”
Helquist countered that if the DNR is wrong, they won’t be the ones paying for the damage.
“It’s not on the DNR to make it right. If the DNR is wrong, it’s the county’s plan,” Helquist said. “DNR isn’t going to be the one coming to the rescue to compensate the landowners and to provide potable water.”
Town of Viroqua committee member AnnaJo Doerr emphasized that the town feels forced into this position because the county board already voted to proceed with expansion in October 2023, regardless of the unresolved feasibility questions.
“You forced our position by that vote,” Doerr told the Infrastructure Committee. “We are approaching this meeting… trying to negotiate a contract for a future landfill that has an approval of an expansion but doesn’t have DNR approval yet.”
Social Impact and Property Guarantees
Beyond environmental liability the town is seeking financial protections for the intangible costs of hosting a waste facility. Helquist outlined demands for increased cut of the county tipping fee, “sociological impact payments” which compensate the community for the stigma and nuisance of the landfill and “property value guarantees.”
Under a property value guarantee the landfill operator typically agrees to compensate neighboring property owners if they sell their homes for less than fair market value due to the presence of the landfill. The town views these as essential protections for residents whose major financial assets sit in the shadow of the expansion.
Truck Routes and Enforcement
The negotiators also clashed over the enforcement of truck routes. Neighbors have long complained that haulers ignore the designated route of Highway 14 to County Y to County LF using shortcuts on town roads instead.
Resident Kyle Kruizenga testified that trucks frequently use Ashbury and Railroad Avenue to save time destroying the intersection known locally as “Sandwich Corner.”
“I am sick of them rebuilding the corner every two years because you guys don’t listen to your own rules,” said Kruizenga. “From my house… I get to see the trucks come Asbury because they don’t want to go the county roads in the right way.”
Solid Waste Director Stacie Sanborn admitted that while the rules exist she lacks the power to enforce them.
“I have no citing authority, so I can’t just walk out to the scale and write them a ticket,” said Sanborn. “So I have no citing authority or fining or violating ability. So all I can do is yell at them.”
Helquist countered that the lack of authority is exactly why the town needs the agreement to grant enforcement powers. He argued that relying on the DNR to police litter or traffic is unrealistic given the agency’s staffing shortages and that a local contract needs “teeth.”
“If there isn’t a local agreement that addresses and allows the town to have some enforcement authority. Then you’re waiting on the DNR,” said Helquist. “We think it’s probably faster for the town to say, Stacie, we’ve received multiple complaints about trucks going downtown roads.”
Daily Cover and Odor Control
While discussing compliance and nuisance issues Sanborn highlighted a new operational system the county recently implemented to address complaints about odor and windblown debris. The county purchased a new alternative daily cover system which utilizes a spray-on slurry of bentonite clay and recycled fibers. The piece of equipment is essentially a modified hydro-seeder.
“It looks like the consistency of pudding and you spray it out,” said Sanborn. “As it dries, it kind of creates a crust.”
Sanborn explained that this crust prevents litter from blowing away and can be mixed with a scented agent to mitigate odors. This system also conserves valuable landfill space by replacing the six inches of sand that was previously required to cover garbage at the end of each day.
“Once you drive over it with the compactor, it busts up. It’s gone. You don’t even know it was there,” said Sanborn. “But instead of putting the six inches of sand. You know, by the time you get six inches of cover on you’ve got this much sand on there because it falls, it settles into the garbage.”
Sandborn said they can also use latex or water based paint in the system which has the benefit of disposing of the waste paint while also locking down the loose debris.
Sanborn said they have been using the system since the end of last year and even the cold temperatures she is “very impressed” with the results.
The “Loophole” and Contract Termination
Tensions rose when Helquist highlighted a clause in the county’s proposed agreement that would allow the county to terminate the contract with 60 days’ notice if they ceased accepting waste for any reason. The town viewed this as a “giant loophole” that would allow the county to walk away from its financial and environmental obligations to the host community at any time.
“You guys can stop accepting waste for a week and terminate this if you run out of capacity,” said Helquist. “You can just terminate this agreement. You can terminate the town host payment. You can terminate any protections that are negotiated.”
Permitting Delays and the capacity dwindling
The contentious negotiation comes as the county faces a looming capacity crisis. The existing landfill is projected to reach capacity within the year but the expansion permit is stuck in a slow-moving approval process with the DNR.
“We were told, essentially from the date that the addendum gets submitted to the DNR that it would be approximately 10 months before we would have a decision one way or the other,” said Administrative Coordinator Cassandra Hanan. “That timeline would include that contested hearing, the timeline for the decision to be made by the DNR after the contested hearing.”
Because the expansion will likely not be ready before the current cell is full the county is preparing contingency plans. Sanborn reported to the Infrastructure Committee earlier in the month that they are negotiating with La Crosse County to divert waste to their incinerator or landfill to conserve remaining airspace as a stop gap to allow enough time for the construction of a new cell. That plan would likely be implemented only if the DNR gives final approval to move forward.
Path Forward
To break the deadlock Hanan suggested the Infrastructure Committee return to the town’s original April proposal and clearly mark which items are negotiable and which are non-negotiable rather than trying to reconcile two completely different documents.
“I feel like it would be beneficial for the Infrastructure Committee to take a look at the townhouse committee’s proposed agreement,” said Hanan. “Decide which items the Infrastructure Committee feels are negotiable. Which items are non negotiable?”
The Infrastructure Committee agreed to review the town’s original document at their February meeting. No date was set for the next joint negotiation session.
The next meeting of the Vernon County Infrastructure Committee that oversees the landfill is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 9:30 a.m.
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