MARSHALL — With the help of state grant funding, the Lyon County landfill will be moving ahead on studying ways to remove PFAS — also called “forever chemicals” — from landfill runoff.

In separate actions Tuesday, Lyon County commissioners voted to accept the grant, and to approve a rental agreement for equipment to help evaporate landfill leachate. The grant project will study how well the evaporation process separates out PFAS from the leachate.

“The grant amount is $214,155 from the state, and we have until December 18 of next year to complete the project,” said Lyon County Environmental Administrator Roger Schroeder. The grant would require a 10% match from the county, which would be paid from landfill funds, he said.

Last year, county staff applied for a grant from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, to study possible methods of concentrating PFAS out of landfill leachate. Leachate is a liquid formed by a mix of runoff like rainwater, and decomposing garbage at the landfill.

PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of manmade chemicals that have been used to make a variety of different products that can eventually end up in the landfill. Because PFAS don’t break down in the environment over time, they can get into groundwater and drinking water.

“The state is pushing very hard for their understanding of PFAS compounds, and the treatment of it and management of it at landfills,” Schroeder said.

Schroeder said the grant the Lyon County landfill applied for would help them study possible ways to separate PFAS out from leachate at the landfill.

“The purpose of the grant is to compare two different methods of leachate treatment: one is evaporation, and one is reverse osmosis,” Schroeder said.

Commissioners voted to accept the grant, and moved on to a rental agreement with ENCON Evaporators for the leachate evaporator in the study.

“It’s a rental unit, it comes on a skid. Tenting it for three months would be $69,950, and then they require a security deposit of $22,500,” Schroeder said.

The security deposit would be refundable, he said.

Schroeder said the evaporators would be fueled by propane, and the landfill was working with Ag Plus on what the cost would be to supply propane.

Schroeder said the equipment would evaporate some of the landfill leachate, leaving more concentrated material behind. That concentrate would be circulated back into the landfill, he said.

The Lyon County landfill has two ponds to store leachate. Currently, the landfill can bring some leachate to the Marshall wastewater treatment facility, but they are limited to 19,000 gallons a day, Schroeder said.

“We’re only hauling between April and November,” he said.

Commissioners voted to approve the rental agreement for the evaporator equipment.

Schroeder said he was still working on getting cost numbers for equipment for the reverse osmosis part of the grant study.