Questions linger for future of construction landfill

Board discusses costs, timeline for closing Lyon Co. demolition landfill

MARSHALL -- Last year, Lyon County officials talked about filling up and closing down a disposal site for construction debris ahead of new state regulations. However, speakers at Wednesday's annual landfill meeting said that would be a costly idea.

"Attempting to fast-fill the site has revealed a gap in available staffing, and additional operation costs," said Tonya Koller of engineering firm Burns & McDonnell.

The Landfill Advisory Board held its annual meeting Wednesday in Marshall. Representatives of counties that use the Lyon County landfill met to hear updates on few different issues facing the facility, as well as to act on recommendations for the landfill's 2027 budget and fees.

One of the presentations the advisory board heard looked at when Lyon County should consider closing its construction and demolition landfill site. Minnesota is looking at setting new rules that could incentivize unlined construction landfills to close down.

The C&D landfill site in Lyon County, located near Russell, does not have a liner to protect against soil and groundwater contamination.

At Wednesday's meeting, Koller said there hasn't been new information coming from the state since draft rules came out last summer.

Last year, the board had talked about filling up and closing the existing C&D landfill site before the new rules come out, Koller and Lyon County Environmental Administrator Roger Schroeder said.

"We know rules are coming. We know it's going to force us to close sooner than what our remaining capacity is, but our main capacity was about four years, five years maybe," Schroeder said.

Unfortunately, Koller said, trying to fill up the C&D landfill would prove costly.

Koller said Schroeder had identified that an additional full-time staffer was needed in order to manage the site effectively.

"Essentially, the cost of operating that site with the additional staff exceeds the revenue," Koller said.

Koller said the C&D landfill site was projected to receive about 2,200 tons of waste this year, for a revenue of about $83,000, compared to total annual costs of $137,000.

"The tonnage Tonya mentioned is a big drop this year, than it was the last two years," Schroeder said. "For whatever reason, that C&D waste just doesn't have the stability that municipal solid waste does, and makes it very hard to predict when would be the right time to close."

"If we look at the revenue on a 10-year average basis, that's 3,300 tons. Again, you're still not meeting or recovering your costs," she said.

The 10-year average annual revenue was about $125,000, she said.

Keeping the site open would require raising disposal rates anywhere from $3.50 per ton to $24.30 per ton just to break even, Koller said. The existing fee is $38 per ton, she said. "There's just not an economy of scale there to keep that facility operating and financially viable."

In the short term, it was more economically viable to send C&D waste to a landfill site in Rock County, she said. However, the Rock County site was also unlined. After the Rock County site closed, the next viable option would be to dispose of C&D waste in a regular landfill, which is lined. It wouldn't have a large effect on the amount of usable life left in the main Lyon County landfill, Schroeder said.

Schroeder said Lyon County also had "a verbal handshake" with Nobles County to send waste to its demolition landfill. That option would also be more costly per ton to haul construction waste, Koller said.

Speakers at the meeting said one possibility for Lyon County would be to separate out some kinds of construction materials for re-use. However, markets would need to exist for those materials, they said.