VERNON COUNTY, Wis. – Following a series of meetings between Vernon County officials, state legislators and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) staff, it appears Vernon County may have a little wiggle room on the timeline for state approval to expand their facility, but they could also run out of space before they get that approval.
Vernon County’s Landfill is running out of space and the county started the process of getting DNR approval about five years ago, that seemed like plenty of time to get state approval for about a five acre expansion to the existing 10 acre facility. At last months Vernon County Infrastructure Committee meeting, Solid Waste Administrator Stacie Sanborn said their recent assessment of space at the facility estimated they have about one year worth of “air space” left before they are full based on current volumes.
The process of getting DNR approval for the proposed expansion bogged down in the last six months. A second “letter of incompleteness” on the expansion feasibility study was a bit unexpected and caused county officials, and the engineering firm that did the study (Short Elliot Hendrickson SEH), to become frustrated with the process. The DNR asked for more investigation and study of a specific area of the site that raised concern about possible karst geology. The county approved the installation of two more test wells in that area to address those concerns.
You can read our previous stories about the expansion process here.
In January, the Vernon County Board of Supervisors granted approval to board leaders and staff to meet with state legislators (State Representative Tara Johnson and State Senator Brad Pfaff) and DNR officials to get clarification on the expansion approval process, the timeline of that process and what the county needed to do to meet those requirements.
A series of meetings between the county, their staff, SEH and the DNR have taken place since that January meeting and county officials reported to the Infrastructure Committee at their June 10 meeting that they did get some clarity on the timeline for approval, but that timeline may still be longer than the remaining airspace left at the facility. But the DNR may approve some short term measures to extend that airspace if they approve the environmental study in the next year.
Sanborn said one of the outcomes of the meeting is that the DNR has called in some geological experts from the University of Wisconsin to review materials already submitted to address concerns about potential karst geology at the site. The hydro-geologist with SEH, Melanie Niday who helped do the site investigation and compile the feasibility study for the county has maintained through the process that karst is not present at the site. Karst is a type of geology known for sinkholes and voids.
Sanborn said in their discussions with the DNR they clarified the timeline for expansion approval and it will likely take another one and half to two years to get final approval. Given the previous calculations that the current facility has about one year of space left, that could put the county in the position of finding alternatives like transferring some waste to other facilities temporarily.
Sanborn said there is the possibility of taking some temporary measures at the facility to buy about another year of airspace if the county gets their environmental plan approved within the next year.
“Good news, because we are doing a vertical and a horizontal expansion, once we get a plan of operations approval, we can place waste on top of the current landfill because we’re going up with the current and out to the expansion area,” said Sanborn. “So that is buying us a good year of time because we’re going to be able to do that.”
“Our last airspace survey showed that we had about 12 months left,” said County Administrative Coordinator Cassie Hanan. “So that’s concerning. We did learn at our meeting that, say we were close, we had just a small time gap. The DNR does not really allow us to temporarily close the landfill. If the landfill is closed, they consider you taking active steps towards closure. And so one of the things we had been discussing is, how do we mitigate that when we’re looking at, you know, if it’s waste diversion, there was another space there, there may be an option to utilize an area that has some intermediate cover. And so there was some back and forth on our non-compliance meeting over whether the DNR would allow us to use that without doing a plan modification.”
Sanborn said she will be developing contingency plans in the event that the county has approval to expand but the facility is full before construction begins.
“I’ve also been in conversation with La Crosse County about setting up and getting us as part of their service area so we don’t run ourselves out of airspace,” said Sanborn. “In the future, we may be transferring to their incinerator, to their landfill. So there’s other things also to mitigate the consumption of your space.”
Hanan said they did a better feel for the timeline and even though there are no guarantees they are hoping for a determination on the feasibility study soon, but then there would be a public comment hearing and likely a contested hearing held by the DNR.
“Once they’ve determined completeness, it goes into a 30 day public comment period,” said Hanan. “During that public comment period, any member of the public could request either an informational hearing or a contested hearing. We are expecting a contested hearing in that case that would be held here in the county. It would be heard by an impartial panel from the DNR.”
Hanan said at the end of that period, they would be their deemed the expansion favorable or unfavorable. Without a favorable determination the process would be done and the faciliuty would be closed.
“If they determine that is unfavorable, it’s done,” said Hanan.
“And they pay us back our $800,000,” said Supervisor Martha Olson.
“I thought there was good communication,” said Hanan. “I thought the DNR reaching out to their own karst experts to help move things along, was good.”
Some committee members asked if there was any discussion with the DNR about the water contamination issues raised by members of the public at numerous meetings.
“We would have been shut down a long time ago if that were the case,” said Sanborn “There would be a major, major construction remediation, cleanup event happening like right now. If the length the liner was leaking, we would have to dig it up.”
County Board Char and Infrastructure Committee Chair Lorn Goede said he was happy with the outcome of the meeting.
“I think the meeting was good,” said Goede “As far as getting people together in the same room. I understand where the DNR is coming from more now than I did before. Before it was like they were dragging their feet. But they have to drag their feet because, after the initial comment period, if they miss something, they’re not allowed to put it in. So they want to make sure they have all the information that’s available to put in their report. Because after they file it, and then if something comes up its too late.”
“They can only use the information that’s provided to them to that decision.,” said Hanan. “They need to be able to defend their decision. And so when they’re saying they don’t have enough information, they’re asking for more information at this point. You know, they’re not asking for us to do any additional wells or anything like that, but we that’s not out of the picture.”
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