Aug. 4, 2026
By Tim Hundt
VIROQUA Wis.– The Vernon County Infrastructure Committee is authorizing its interim solid waste manager to directly question the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources regarding the stalled approval process for the county landfill expansion. The decision comes after Interim Landfill Manager Gail Frie told the committee that he believes a single state regulator is holding up the project and that the county needs answers before it runs out of space and money.
The county is currently seeking state approval for a vertical and horizontal expansion that would add over 427,000 cubic yards of space to the existing 9.5 acre facility which was originally built in the early 1990s. The expansion would secure the county waste disposal needs for another 15 years but the process has dragged on since preliminary work began in 2018. The DNR has issued two notices of incompleteness to the county requesting more extensive geological testing to prove the site is not located on karst geology.
The delays have frustrated county officials who have already spent nearly $1 million on engineering and environmental studies with Short Elliot Hendrickson (SEH). The process has also been heavily scrutinized by local citizens and environmental advocates who argue the landfill should never have been built in a region known for sinkholes and fractured bedrock.
During recent committee meetings Frie laid out the dire situation facing the facility and asked for permission to confront the DNR about their review process. Frie brings extensive experience to the table having previously managed the Vernon County landfill for 17 years before taking over the Monroe County facility.
“I have been through three feasibilities before this,” said Frie. “I have 35 years of past practice experience. A lot of things are different now but nobody is questioning why the codes have not changed.”
Frie compared the stalled Vernon County process to the expansion he recently oversaw in Monroe County.
“I did the feasibility right before I left Monroe County six years ago,” said Frie. “That is a much larger landfill and with a $3 million dollar budget and it is on the groundwater divide so groundwater leaves the landfill site in all directions. That total cost was $400,000 dollars and it took about a year. You have already spent a million dollars with no end in sight. Somebody needs to be asking some questions.”
Frie told the committee that during a recent surprise compliance inspection at the Vernon County landfill he spoke candidly with a DNR inspector who confirmed his suspicions about the holdup.
“The inspector and I had a good discussion,” said Frie. “He admitted there is one person inside DNR installing this project. Everybody else is satisfied with it.”
Frie requested permission to ask the DNR why the project has cost so much with no end date in sight and to question whether regulators are following the code or ignoring 35 years of past practice. Supervisor Wayde Lawler agreed that the county needs answers but urged caution.
“I am not opposed to asking questions provided it is done respectfully,” said Lawler. “Whatever needs to take place to ensure that we are not jeopardizing the process.”
The urgency to get an answer from the state is driven by a critical lack of space at the current facility. Previous reports indicated the landfill was technically full but Frie explained that those calculations were made by someone without landfill experience who failed to subtract the intermediate dirt cover that the county is now removing to create more room.
“The department was flat out accused of lying about the volumes and I want to try and explain to you what happened,” said Frie. “The first person that did the volume calculation was a numbers person and not experienced in landfills.”
Frie explained that by removing the dirt the county has roughly 6,000 cubic yards of space left on the west side and a few more feet on the north side. However a recent severe hail storm in Westby drastically accelerated the filling process. Frie noted that in just two months the facility took in 1,905 loads totaling 6,000 tons of storm debris.
“I am forced to try and find reasons to refuse loads and I have refused a number of loads because I want to save room for Vernon County citizen customers,” said Frie. “It is at least three 16 yard dumpsters every day we are open. When I was here we did not accept any of that but it turns out to be a pretty good cash load right there.”
Frie said the weather related disaster that hit Westby is a prime example of why they county needs a local facility that handle the volumes generated in emergency scenarios like tornadoes or floods.
The regulatory timeline and steps to construction
To keep the expansion moving forward the county recently submitted its final addendum to the DNR to address outstanding geological concerns. Under state statutes the submittal of this final report triggers a specific regulatory timeline. Once the final report is received state regulators have between 60 and 90 days to officially approve the feasibility report or rule it incomplete.
If the DNR approves the feasibility study it enters a mandatory 30 day public notice and comment period. County officials have acknowledged they expects a contested case hearing to be requested during this window.
“Once they have 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.”
The contested case hearing is a formal legal proceeding heard by an impartial panel from the DNR. Statutorily the DNR must write its final feasibility determination within 60 days after the hearing is completed. That the entire feasibility review process is expected to take about 10 months from the submittal of the addendum.
If the county receives a favorable feasibility determination the county board must then vote on whether to proceed with the second major regulatory step which is the detailed Plan of Operations. The Plan of Operations includes detailed engineering designs construction specifications and operational monitoring plans. The DNR typically takes three to six months to review and approve this document.
Once the Plan of Operations is approved the county board must vote to authorize borrowing the construction costs. Constructing the first phase of the expansion which includes three proposed cells is estimated to cost $2.8 million. Frie estimated it would take approximately four months of engineering development to execute a construction contract. The physical construction of the cells is expected to take between one and two years to fully complete.
The high cost of transfer stations and the private alternative in Viroqua
Members of the infrastructure committee had previously discussed the idea of closing the landfill but converting the facility into a transfer station and keeping the recycling program going. To address these questions Frie presented the committee with a detailed estimate of what a county owned transfer station would cost to build and equip. Frie estimated the total cost to establish a transfer station would be roughly $2.3 million.
Frie said he got estimates from a firm that has constructed numerous other transfer stations around the state and they estimated the cost to convert to a transfer station at about $2.3 million. Frie broke down the $2.3 million estimate explaining that a steel building with a 30 foot ceiling height would cost $1.5 million, a compactor would cost $200,000, a semi-tractor with municipal discounts would cost $150,000, and trailers would cost $450,000. He argued that a county owned transfer station makes no business sense because a private transfer station already exists in the same community.
“Having a transfer station and a landfill you have the best of both worlds when they work together,” said Frie. “The ROI on a transfer station is only good if you are transferring to a landfill you own.”
The existing private transfer station in Viroqua is operated by GFL Environmental which was formerly Southwest Sanitation. The historical context of why this private facility was built goes back to a dispute between the counties largest hauler (SouthWest) and previous landfill manager Gene Edwards. At the time the county required haulers operating in the county to sign a contract that they haul Vernon County waste to the county facility, but that agreement was later deemed unenforceable by the county attorney.
In an effort to keep the volume in the county the solid waste committee lowered the tipping fee for SouthWest (Now GFL) from $60 a ton to $49 a ton and they agreed to send 90 percent of their volume to the county facility. That arrangement came to en end and SouthWest began hauling county waste to a private facility. The change severely damaged the county landfill’s bottom line by cutting its volume from 20,000 tons per year to less than 10,000 tons per year. This includes waste from the City of Viroqua which historically brought 1,200 tons of garbage annually to the county facility but recently negotiated a contract with GFL to divert its waste to the private transfer station instead.
Frie informed the committee of that history, including the decision by the county to lower the tipping fee for its largest hauler.
“I did some research because I was not clear in my mind why we were in such dire straits,” said Frie. “In late 2018 under the direction of a prior county board chairman this committee decided to lower the tipping fee to $49 dollars a ton. At today’s rate that costs the landfill $1,111,899 dollars.”
The historical information seemed to surprise some the current committee members who were not on the board when the deal was made.
“That $49 dollar tipping fee you are talking about,” said Supervisor Charles Jacobson. “I guess I would like to know more background on that where that started from because I cannot imagine that.”
“That was a request from a local hauler that threatened to haul his waste out of the county when he had no ability to do it,” said Frie. “There was very little discussion on it. The county board chairman and this committee made the decision at a meeting.”
Jacobson asked if the previous landfill manager had supported the massive rate cut.
“The landfill director was against it?” asked Jacobson.
“Yes,” said Frie. “But she wanted to keep her job.”
Frie noted that under state law municipal landfills are required to charge the same gate fee to everybody meaning the county was forced to lower the rate for all users just to satisfy the demands of one corporation. He pointed out that if the county had simply maintained its standard rate of $60 a ton it would not be facing its current fiscal crisis.
“That pretty much tells the story of why we are in financial trouble right now,” said Frie. “Even if you were not on this committee back then you inherited the responsibility to at least acknowledge this happening.”
A financial path forward
Having acknowledged the financial hole the county is in Frie also laid out a path to keep the facility in operation if they are able to land DNR approval. Frie warned that until the expansion is approved the county will likely have to operate the facility at a loss by paying private haulers to divert municipal waste to other landfills. He estimated the county might need a short-term loan from the general fund of $50,000 to $100,000 to survive the gap. However, Frie argued that the short-term pain is worth the long-term financial reward of owning a permitted facility.
“Basically the way I see it that the expansion creates $30 million dollars of revenue at today’s market rate,” said Frie. “You guys probably know that DNR will get at least $8 million of that but that still leaves us $20 million to provide service to our residents.”
Stretching airspace to survive the construction gap
Because the expansion will likely not be ready before the current cell is full the county is utilizing short term strategies to handle its waste in the interim. First the county is preparing temporary waste diversion partnerships with neighboring counties. Hanan reported that negotiations have focused on using La Crosse County’s waste incinerator or landfill. The county would pay La Crosse County a tipping fee of $79 a ton but would receive a 9 percent rebate. Frie suggested having regular haulers take municipal waste directly to another landfill with the county reimbursing the increased tipping fee up to $10 a ton.
“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 tipping fee,” said Frie. “For 1,000 tons that is $10,000.”
Second, the county is physically mining the existing landfill to recapture buried airspace. By using an excavator to strip back intermediate dirt cover on side slopes and fill low areas to final design grade the county can create more room. Sanborn noted that while state rules require plan modifications to open up old intermediate cover areas the county can safely reclaim up to 7,500 cubic yards of space on side slopes currently under alternative daily cover without triggering complex DNR reviews.
Finally because the county is pursuing a vertical and horizontal expansion the vertical component is located on top of the already constructed landfill footprint. This means as soon as the Plan of Operation is approved the county can place waste vertically on the existing landfill footprint buying about a year of airspace while the new horizontal cells are physically constructed.
“Because we are doing a vertical and a horizontal landfill expansion the vertical component of that expansion is essentially on top of what is already constructed,” said Sanborn. “Once we are through the plan of ops we have technically permitted airspace on top of the existing landfill footprint which we would be able to fill.”
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