March 18, 2026
By TIM HUNDT
VERNON COUNTY, Wis. – Vernon County officials convened a joint meeting of the Finance and Infrastructure committees on March 17 to confront the mounting financial and logistical hurdles threatening the proposed expansion of the county landfill.
The meeting marks the latest chapter in a multi-year effort to save the county waste disposal program. The current 9.5 acre facility was built in the early 1990s and is rapidly running out of permitted room to bury trash. To keep the facility open the county proposed a horizontal and vertical expansion that would add over 427,000 cubic yards of space securing the county waste disposal needs for another 15 years.
The Vernon County Board of Supervisors officially gave the green light to the project in October 2023 passing the 15 year expansion plan on a 14 to 3 vote. When the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources stalled the project by issuing a second “letter of incompleteness” demanding more geological testing the board doubled down. In January 2025 supervisors voted unanimously 19 to 0 to keep moving forward with the expansion process and enlisted state legislators to help mediate the regulatory impasse.
The entire process hinges on the critical concept of airspace which is the literal volume available within the landfill footprint to bury waste. Airspace dictates all operational decision making because it represents the lifespan and revenue potential of the facility. If the current landfill runs out of permitted airspace before the state approves the expansion the county either have to make arrangements to transfer waste to other facilities until a decision is made and the expansion can be completed.
The delays are largely tied to state requests for more extensive geological testing regarding the underlying karst geology. Solid Waste Director Stacie Sanborn explained that the second letter of incompleteness was a shock to her engineers because they had just held a three hour meeting with the DNR where karst geology was barely discussed.
Critics of the facility say it is located on fragile karst geology and no facility should ever be sited on that geology. Engineers for the firmed hired by the county helping design the expansion say the geology say the location is in a karst region but does not show evidence of cave ins and sink holes that would make it unsafe and numerous other layers of protection including a 60 mil membrane liner that catches all the water filtering through which is then pumped out.
Since then the county has been forced to wait out a painfully slow bureaucratic process. Administrative Coordinator Cassandra Hanan noted that every time the county submits new data the DNR can stop the clock to request more information such as recent demands to do site visits at local rock quarries.
Supervisor Mary Henry pointed out that the delays are also a result of massive state level staffing shortages.
“As of 2025, 500 positions in the DNR have been cut since 2003,” said Henry. “So because of the pressure and the deficit of money that is part of the problem and the hiccup of all of this. So it is beyond the county control of why this is taking so long”.
The stalled process has left the Solid Waste Department in a state of limbo as officials try to stretch their remaining airspace while grappling with financial losses. County Finance Director Annie Lockyer and Hanan presented a sobering look at the department finances pointing to audited financial records showing the department has experienced a net position drop of nearly $1.8 million dollars between 2014 and 2025.
Lockyer and Hanan advised the committees against continuing to support the project pointing out that draining the county general fund reserves for an enterprise fund will ultimately damage the county bond rating and make all future county debt more expensive.
“I do know about people asking me to spend an extra $3 million dollars for an enterprise fund that doesn’t cover its costs,” said Lockyer. “For me it is a pretty black and white financial decision”.
Lockyer urged the supervisors to view the landfill purely as a business investment rather than an emotional issue.
“If someone came to you with a personal investment opportunity for $3 million dollars and they showed this kind of cash flow you would not invest,” said Lockyer. “I think we need to be just as cautious with our taxpayer funds”.
Hanan defended the bleak financial report arguing that the county must rely on official certified numbers when making decisions.
“These are our audited financials,” said Hanan. “So, you can argue with it all you want as far as how we got to those numbers but this is our official financial record of the county is the audit”.
Sanborn pushed back aggressively against the administration numbers arguing they did not accurately reflect the actual cash position or operational reality of her department. Sanborn began by expressing frustration that she was blindsided by the financial memo.
“I would assume the memo you guys got in the packet I did not see that until just prior to this meeting,” said Sanborn. “So I did not know what to present”.
Sanborn argued that the audited net position decline was heavily skewed by paper losses because the department historically did not budget for depreciation until 2024. She explained that depreciation hits the books at the end of the year reducing the net position by roughly $250,000 dollars annually.
Furthermore Sanborn provided a specific breakdown of how paying cash for the expansion engineering out her operational budget instead long-term debt severely drained the department over the last several years.
“2020 we started with just under $13,000 dollars (expansion cost) and 2021 was $101,000,” said Sanborn. “2022 was $205,000 and 2023 was $342,000, because that was the year we did a majority of the feasibility study report. In 2024 we did over $100,000 dollars towards the expansion. And last year I have a number of $125,000”.
Sanborn argued the department also spent $630,000 dollars replacing heavy equipment out of pocket and noted the financial picture would look completely different if they had financed those costs.
“I feel like when this was originally done the department would be looking a lot better had we taken a loan for the project like any other project the county does,” said Sanborn. “Instead of bleeding the enterprise fund dry and that is where we are sitting right now”.
Supervisor Wayde Lawler acknowledged that the department had borne the heavy burden of the expansion and urged the committee to drill down on operational numbers without those costs to determine if future operation was sustainable.
“There is a picture here that is being revealed,” said Lawler. “You could take the expansion off the table entirely and just fund and say is this something that we can afford to and want to afford to keep doing”.
Supervisor Sandy Schweiger questioned the strict adherence to the enterprise fund model arguing that the county should evaluate the landfill based on its benefit to residents rather than just its profit margin.
“Why does a landfill have to be an enterprise fund?” asked Schweiger. “We are looking at it as a service”.
An enterprise fund is a self-supporting government fund that sells goods and services to the public for a fee. In this tipping fees at the landfill to dump waste. The county landfill has operated since opening with little or no local tax levy money.
Schweiger pointed out that the county readily borrows millions to fund highway infrastructure without demanding a profit.
Hanan pointed out that there are certain functions that the county is required to do by statute, like highways, public safety and human services. Hanan said if the county chose they could not under take the waste disposal function and let each local unit of government decide how to handle it.
“We’ve already approved a bond for the highway department $5 million dollars for projects for the highway that’s going to cost the county $7 million dollars,” said Schweiger. “So that’s $2 million dollars that we were willing to pay to cover those expenses”.
Infrastructure Committee Chair Lorn Goede firmly supported keeping the landfill open and pursuing the expansion. Goede argued against shutting the facility down over short term cash flow problems asserting that the new airspace created by the expansion will generate massive revenues that will easily cover the upfront investments.
“If someone comes to me with a 3 million dollar investment that over the next few years is going to bring in 25 million dollars I really take a serious look at it,” said Goede. “Because that is what we are investing in. Is a 25 million dollar investment”.
Goede warned that losing the facility would put the county at the mercy of private waste haulers who would raise rates once the county option was gone. He noted the absurdity of abandoning a local site just to force local garbage to be hauled 150 miles away using expensive trucks and high priced diesel fuel.
“You cannot tell me it is cheaper to bring it to the growth dump it off reload it and haul it 150 miles with a $200,000 dollar machine,” said Goede.
He also pointed out that massive private haulers like GFL still rely heavily on the local Vernon County facility for difficult waste loads they do not want to transport long distances. Goede said the townships have been clear they want this facility here and all the services like clean sweep, recycling and large item disposal would cost them much more if privatized.
“We turned down stuff from GFL right now because they want to bring us their crap that they don’t want to haul to Eau Claire,” said Goede. “They want to bring us their tires. They want to bring us their deer bones and they want to bring us their asbestos that we turn down because lack of airspace right now”.
Goede urged the board to realize the finality of their choice.
“This is an asset in County,” said Goede. “After it goes away it’s going to be too late”.
The tense financial discussion was momentarily eased by positive news regarding the immediate physical capacity of the current landfill. During previous meetings Sanborn had warned that the landfill was essentially full and would require expensive modifications to dig up old intermediate soil covers to create room. However Sanborn told the joint committees that a newly completed airspace survey revealed significantly more space than previously estimated.
Sanborn explained that the new calculations showed over 15,000 cubic yards of space available in an active area that only requires moving daily cover materials rather than digging into intermediate soil layers.
“I was elated,” said Sanborn. “There is 15,000 cubic yards just there so all this panic and anxiety under daily cover, but that is material that is going to stay in place”.
The fate of the landfill drew a large crowd of residents and local officials who offered passionate testimony during the public comment period. The speakers were sharply divided between those who fear the environmental and financial risks of expansion and those who believe maintaining local control over waste disposal is critical.
AnnaJo Doerr who chairs the town of Viroqua committee negotiating a host agreement with the county urged supervisors to take a hard look at the actual costs and the numerous hurdles the project faces. Doerr listed flow control laws township authority to contract with chosen haulers real industry competition in the form of private waste management the present scarcity of airspace in the current landfill and local advocacy for greater groundwater protections as complicating factors in accurately assessing the financial feasibility of the project.
“The landfill has become a complicated liability for the county as waste volumes have changed,” said Doerr. “An objective financial and ideological review of the mandate purpose and vision for Vernon County operating its own landfill is long overdue with a realistic financial analysis of the counties capacity to meet those goals”.
Because of a strict four minute limit on public testimony Doerr was cut off before she could finish her remarks. She subsequently submitted extended written comments to the committees detailing her concerns over the hidden costs of the operation. In her written remarks Doerr accused the county of substituting neutral dirt cover with more toxic alternative daily cover simply because the facility is paid to take in the alternative materials.
“This looks good on records on the bottom line of finances alone,” wrote Doerr. “The increased proportionate toxic load on the landfill in landfill infrastructure becomes a hidden cost. The incremental change in leachate toxicity and volume becomes a hidden cost”.
Doerr wrote that a county enterprise must balance financial oversight with environmental innovation and argued the landfill should not be scrambling to prove its viability or fighting with its host township after 30 years in business.
Viroqua resident KJ Jacobson who has attended numerous county meetings claiming to have evidence that the landfill is already leaking and ponding leachate cited over 3,500 hours of personal research into the landfill finances. Jacobson claimed her forensic accounting review proved the county was masking the true extent of the losses by omitting certain expenses from the general ledger such as depreciation payroll accruals and long term care costs.
“I have been trying to alert you folks for almost two full years that this landfill has been a losing proposition since 2014,” said Jacobson.
Jacobson also accused the Solid Waste Department of gaslighting the board regarding the safety of removing old dirt layers to create new space. Jacobson claimed the soil the county wants to move is contaminated from pooling leachate and should not be disturbed.
Town of Forest Chairman Mark Davison countered Jacobson and others arguing that opponents are spreading false information about the safety of the site and stressing that his township wants the facility to remain open. Davison reminded the crowd of a previous meeting where he recited the fable of Chicken Little to illustrate the unwarranted hysteria surrounding the environmental fears.
“I have heard every story about pollution contamination and I have yet to see where it has been proved,” said Davison. “I am not going to read Chicken Little to you this time. The people in the town of Forest support the landfill and we need the landfill.”
Former landfill manager Gail Frie defended the safety and engineering of the site reading from a prepared statement that noted the county built the facility to exceed state standards and actively removes leachate from the facility to protect groundwater.
“The landfill keeps the bottom of the landfill dry to eliminate any possibility of liquid leaving the site,” said Frie.
Frie argued that the county board had repeatedly voted to support the expansion convincing the department the decision was final and prompting them to spend $864,000 dollars on feasibility studies. He criticized the political maneuvering that has hampered the facility.
“The landfill operates as a standalone business without the use of county tax dollars now because of local and state political decisions the landfill operation is going to start losing money short term until the expansion construction is completed,” said Frie. “It may be time for taxpayers to voice their support and start a petition for people to sign that value the local control of local issues. We need to get an answer from DNR why this is taking so long”.
Frie also addressed the ongoing debate about whether the county can secure enough trash volume to remain profitable. He argued that the waste is still generated locally and will return to the county facility if the rates remain competitive.
“In 2008 we were taking 20,000 ton a year,” said Frie. “There is 20,000 tons available in this county historically and it is still here. This landfill has always been and is still the cheapest landfill in the entire area”.
The facility is currently projected to take in about 10,000 tons and Sanborn estimates GFL handles about 8,000 tons through their transfer station that leaves the county.
Frie noted his own success running the facility on those historical volumes.
“If we are cheaper that 20,000 ton is going to come here,” said Frie. “And I operated with 20,000 ton at 50 dollars a ton. So I know everything went up. But at $60 or $65 dollars a ton you can operate very well somewhere near that 20,000 ton”.
Frie then turned to those in the meeting room and asked for a show of support for the local operation.
“I would like to see anybody here that supports the landfill please raise your hand,” said Frie.
The majority of the people in the room raised their hands in support of keeping the facility open. However this show of support came after numerous citizens had spoken out passionately against the expansion at this and previous meetings.
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