April 14, 2025
VERNON COUNTY, Wis. – This Tuesday the Vernon County Board of Supervisors will once again wrestle with the question of whether or not they want to own their own landfill and jump through all the regulatory hoops it takes to expand their facility. The county landfill, located in the town of Viroqua, is running out of space, and the County Solid Waste Department began the process of getting approval from the DNR for an expansion back in 2018. That expansion proposal has run into hurdles at nearly every step of the way and last week the county received their second “notice of incompleteness” from the DNR for their 2,368 page feasibility study of that expansion.
That was not good news for the county that has already sunk about $750,000 into engineering, geologic testing and investigation in order to satisfy the DNRs questions from the first letter they received in 2023. That has prompted the board of supervisors to put the expansion back on the agenda for this Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting once again, to consider its commitment to keeping the waste service in the county.
Unlike the first notice of incompleteness that the county received in December of 2019, this one was not anticipated. At the April 8 Infrastructure Committee meeting (the committee that oversees the solid waste department), Solid Waste Administrator Stacie Sanborn said she had been in contact with their engineers at Short Elliot Hendrickson (SEH), and with the DNR, and everyone was a bit surprised at the nature of the letter since they have met a majority of the requests for information. And the county is about to start drilling another test well in the are area of concern, as they had been requested by the DNR .
“Of the 30 points of concern in the first notice of incompletion, 21 are now satisfied,” said Sanborn. “However, there are some additional concerns remaining. SEH has been working on the study since September of 2020, and Solid Waste Department has invested over $760,000 in this expansion project. To date, at this time, the DNR has made suggestions that these additional monitoring wells may not satisfy all of their requirements. They also mentioned that they have additional concerns, but they haven’t provided any specific information they need to satisfy these concerns.”
Sanborn said the county has been made every effort to answer all the requests for information and suggested making a stronger case for the counties position.
“Up until now, the narrative has been pretty negative and controlled by the DNR without any resistance from the county or any consideration of the positives the landfill operations provide,” said Sanborn. “Despite DNR comments, I am suggesting the department move forward with the approved installation of these monitoring wells that the DNR requested. We also need to get our state legislative representatives to help us present a more positive narrative by stressing that our landfill design exceeds the safety measures required by state and federal standards in the NR 500 code.”
The DNR notice also drew some pushback from the Senior Hydrogeologist with SEH, Melanie Niday as shown below.
County Administrative Coordinator Cassie Hanan said the potential for more costs for investigation is concerning, and even then there is no guarantee the DNR will approve after all of those costs.
“There’s always a chance the DNR is going to come back and say that’s not enough,” said Hanan. “In that case, they would issue a third notice of incompletion, and most likely require, and it says in this notice of incompletion as well, an environmental impact study. An environmental impact study would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000 to $400,000.”
Hanan outlined three possible paths.
“The first being to withdraw the expansion,” said Hanan. “The second being, as Stacie outlined, appeal to elected officials. And the third being, to move forward as planned and they approve it. The concern is that we do this additional drilling, and they’re going to want more and more.”
Some history on the landfill
The Vernon County Solid Waste and Recycling facility was built on 160 acres in the Viroqua Township in the early 90’s at the request of the municipalities after the DNR mandated the closure of the smaller unlined “dumps.” The idea was to consolidate disposal efforts across the county and help shelter Vernon County from liability by having control over where the county waste goes. The actual site used for waste disposal is currently about 9.6 acres. The facility operates as an “enterprise” fund, in other words, it is intended to be self funded by tipping fees and other sources of revenue.
Vernon County made the choice then that it would own its own facility to limit liability by building the facility over and above DNR standards, and that the county would have control over the waste stream of residents inside the county. The county intentionally purchased more land than was needed to ensure room for expansion and to create and large buffer between the facility and its neighbors.
The proposed expansion would use about another four acres that would allow for a horizontal and vertical expansion. In other words, adding height to the exiting cell as well as widening the footprint.
Other hurdles to clear
Resident support or opposition:
DNR approval has not been the only snag in the process of getting the expansion approved. The Vernon County Board of Supervisors voted to approve a plan to expand the landfill in October of 2023 by a vote of 14-3, and at that time the support for the facility remaining in operation seemed to outweigh opposition. 20 people spoke during public comment at that meeting and 13 people spoke in favor of keeping it open and seven wanted it closed.
Representatives from the towns of Hamburg, Genoa, Forrest, Coon, Union and the Village of La Farge all spoke in favor of the expansion. Many of municipal representatives spoke about the specialized services the local facility offers they would have to pay more for if it closes. Items like tires, appliances, paint and electronic waste. Many of the local town officials said one of the main reasons they wanted to the facility to stay open was to maintain local control of where their waste goes, and without the local option they will likely be dependent on a large corporation. They also expressed fear that in rural areas they could see a return to a time when their residents would throw garbage, and hard to dispose of items, in ditches or along roadways.
Opposition voices get louder
But following that board approval of the expansion plan, contingent on that DNR approval, some residents continued to voice their concern over the landfills continued operation for a number of reasons, including financial concerns because of decreased volumes, and environmental given concerns over the siting location.
In February of last year the county began the process of trying to negotiate the “town host agreement”. The township where the landfill is sited or expanded gets to have input on operational items like truck routes. litter control, odor control just to name a few. That agreement however does not give the township a say in whether the landfill can expand or not since the township agreed to have the landfill there when it was originally sited.
That town host agreement negotiation process drew more opposition from residents as it went on and the committee eventually hired their own attorney, Anders Helquist, to negotiate the agreement for them.
You can read our previous story about those resident concerns here.
You can watch the first Infrastructure Committee meeting about the town host negotiations from a year ago below.
On February 12 of last year there was a meeting at The Commons on Viroqua where a number residents voiced concerns about financial and environmental concerns giving detailed presentations about their concerns in both of those areas. You can read our previous story about that meeting and the subsequent county board meeting in March that spoke to those concerns here.
Below: March County Board of Supervisors that includes public comment and Sanborn’s presentation on the financials.
Below: Hydrogeologist Melonie Niday’s presentation to the county board on the geology of the site.
At a number of committee meetings and the Board of Supervisor meetings throughout the remainder of last year and into this year, those opposed to the expansion have been speaking during public comment at those meetings and continuing to voice their concerns. A number of those opposed attended last weeks special committee meeting to present a proposal for a new town host agreement. During public comment, most spoke against the expansion.
KJ Jacobson said she has submitted open records requests to the DNR and has information that that there are Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) that have been detected in some of the samples from test wells around the site. Jakobson said some these compounds are able to permeate/diffuse the HDPE liner. The Vernon County Landfill is designed to catch all water that filters through the refuse and is collected and pumped out to be treated. That waste water is known as leachate and Jakobson said she believes “Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in the leachate escape through processes of permeation and diffusion of an intact liner.”
Jakobson expounded on her findings at the April 9 town host agreement meeting.
“We need to protect our groundwater, and the landfill is leaking in ways that have been written about since the early 90s, and the regulators ignore,” said Jakobson. “Which is the VOCs go right through the liner and through the clay, through the intact, no holes, flexible membrane, and the clay. And we know there are detections. We know that the special waste that got piled up or daily cover, all the contaminants in those special waste ended up in well 19.”
Jakobson is claiming the contaminated soils that were hauled to the landfill from the dmolition site for the old county highway shop, and used for covering the waste at the end of the day, contain substances that are showing in test wells.
“This is very serious, and the DNR is not going to protect our aquifer until it’s too late,” said Jakobson. “They think you clean up an aquifer. Well, there are aquifers on the east side of the state that are surficial and close to the surface, and they can be cleaned up, but ours can’t.”
Sanborn later addressed that issue and said the soils that were accepted from the highway shop cleanup were an unusual situation and the use was approved by the DNR.
“We actually just completed the special waste management plan for our facility,” said Sanborn. “Which is what this falls under, and that material is approved by DNR for acceptance as alternative daily cover.”
Jakobson continued with more suggestions for the town host agreement.
“Number one, stop receiving food waste,” said Jakobson. “That’s the biggest generator, aside from precipitation, also when it combines with inorganic waste, it makes things like arsenic and chromium much more toxic. Second of all, heavy metal detection sampling, the only sampling we’ve been doing for 36 years is for a number of months after you dig a well, and then the heavy metals aren’t tested at all. And that is in violation of EPA rules, which the state is supposed to be following. I don’t know how that’s happened, but there should be heavy metal testing. There should be immediate retesting if a quality control blank has a parameter that also shows up in the well. That should be immediately retested. PFAS and other persistent chemicals that are likely to be in the waste should be tested at the same rate that the VOCs are tested. There should be quarterly monitoring of any parameters that show up in the groundwater for at least two years. If there are no further detections for two years, they can go back to normal monitoring. That’s what I’m suggesting, continuous monitoring.”
Tom Lukens lives on the West Fork of the Kickapoo, downstream of the landfill.
“I fear for the contamination of that water,” said Lukens. ‘I’ve been going to meetings now since 2018 or 2019, and often in those budget meetings, leachate runs over budget. (the cost to transport to a treatment facility). That’s the toxic waste that is so, it’s been over budget, and that means we got a lot of solution there. That is a real risk. Remember, we are the smallest municipal landfill in the state, and there are economies of scale with landfills. I read in the entirety of the of the DNR second letter of incompleteness determination. They still question the whole idea that there is a perched water table here. And so they point out the the the fractures and say that even, you spend this other $130,000 on another set of wells, they still cannot promise you that it’s going to be good enough. You’re throwing a lot of money at this thing. Well number 19 was mentioned. This is the same exact contaminants that are in that brownfield soil, petroleum contaminated soil, which was used for cover in the landfill. Supposed to be clean cover. It was brownfield soil. That’s showing up in the wells already. I don’t know how you can claim to be stewards of of county money or health when these things are the case. I noticed that that we’ve accepted coal ash. Do you remember 20 or 22 years ago, we all fought coal ash dump here in Vernon County. Now, in order to make tonnage, we’re bringing in coal ash. We fought it. It’s unbelievable to me. You were marginal on the money when you had 18,000 tons of tipping fees. You have your competitors out guaranteeing $50 per ton of tipping fees. Your own financials require $65 or more in tipping fees in order to try to make this thing solvent. And your competition is lining up people at $50 a ton yet you refuse to look responsibly at the fiscal situation. The fact that we have these VOC’s, the volatile compounds leaching into and through a liner. It’s It’s incomprehensible to me that the county should go on. And I understand that the last last infrastructure meeting, the idea was to lobby politically and ignore the science, to go after political people. You are being irresponsible.”
We reached out to Administrator Sanborn and asked for a response regarding the claims that well samples show VOCs or any other contamination. Sanborn said she has reached out to the environmental monitoring company that does the testing and she will address those issues at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday.
Kelvin Rodolfo is a retired geologist and lives near the landfill and has expressed his concern about siting any landfill on karst geology.
“I live about a mile south, southwest of the landfill,” said Rodolfo. “I’m the only one who ever did the systematic study of the geology of the Viroqua Township. Those data have been available to the county since my good friend Dennis was the chair. Basically all I’ll say is this, the landfill is polluting our water right now, but what you can do is you can minimize the damage by not expanding the landfill. But whether we like it or not we are going to be paying for the pollution that is happening right now, right now.”
One of the points of contention between those who oppose the expansion and the engineers is whether the site is on karst geology. Rodolfo contends it is and the SEH Hydrogeologist Melanie Niday with SEH says the testing they have performed indicates the site is not karstic.
Gail Frie is the former Vernon County Landfill Administrator and was part of the original siting of the facility. He would later move to Monroe County where he ran their landfill before retiring. Frie said he feels the landfill is safe and suggested and the town go to mediation rather than negotiate an agreement.
“I’m a town of Viroqua resident. I also have a little history with the original siting of the landfill,” said Frie. “The original concern the township had was the expense of the town road leading to the landfill. So the county agreed to build a completely new road that would handle the truck traffic. The landfill paid for that road, and it was made a county road to cover all maintenance costs. At that time, the township board was pretty confident that a few houses would get built and we would have a little extra tax revenue. At my last count there was, I think there’s about 15 new houses built on County Road LF since the landfill has been operational. Truly, these neighbors are not concerned about the landfill affecting their property values. The Vernon County landfill has the lowest cost of any landfill within 100 miles, and the local convenience factor of having full service disposal programs next door also benefits the town of Viroqua. Bear in mind, there were many local safety environmental concerns with the original landfill being sited, and these were mitigated by negotiating the safest landfill design in the state of Wisconsin. Maybe the nation. My last point is that the town of Viroqua never asked for a host fee payment in the original siting process. It was offered by the Solid Waste Committee after the fact. The current host fee remains about double of what Monroe and La Crosse County landfills paid. I would advise you guys to quit wasting time and just go to mediation and stop considering additional concessions. That was just increased disposal costs for every citizen of in Vernon County. The last issue I’d like to talk about bailing garbage was labor intensive and very expensive, is a lot of hard work, but we did it to control litter. Now, in an effort to be a good neighbor, the landfill has purchased, and it hasn’t come yet, but they’ve ordered $100,000 cover system control the current litter problem. This has been a bad spring for litter. Anybody will admit that it’s a mess. Litter is the biggest and most expensive problem that landfill has to deal with, and the neighbors, of course.”
The rest of the meeting was about the Town of Viroqua Siting Committee presenting their items they are requesting be in the town host agreement. This is just the first step in the process to come to an agreement between the county and the township. Below is a copy of the proposal presented to the county by the attorney for the committee, Anders Helquist.
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