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MARSHALL -- Fees for waste haulers to bring trash to the Lyon County landfill are set to rise $5 a ton next year, and part of the money collected will be set aside to treat chemicals like PFAS in landfill runoff.
On Tuesday, Lyon County Commissioners voted to approve new tipping fees and a 2027 operating budget for the landfill. After last week's annual meeting of the Landfill Advisory Board, board member recommendations were to increase tip fees from $51 per ton of waste to $56 per ton.
Lyon County Environmental Administrator Roger Schroeder said Tuesday that $1 per ton of the fee increase would be for regular operating costs of the landfill, while $4 per ton would be set aside for treatment of leachate.
Leachate is a liquid formed from decomposing garbage at the landfill and precipitation like rain or snowmelt. Currently, the Lyon County landfill hauls leachate to the Marshall city wastewater plant for treatment. However, with the possibility of stricter pollution limits for wastewater plants, it could become harder to find leachate treatment options in the future, Schroeder said. In that case, the Lyon County landfill might have to treat its own leachate on-site.
Schroeder said the Marshall wastewater plant has said it will stop taking the landfill's leachate at some point in the future, although a cutoff date has not been set yet.
Schroeder said the Landfill Advisory Board had "a good conversation" about 2027 tip fee rates at last week's annual meeting. Schroeder said the landfill's environmental consultant forecast had included fee increases over five years to raise funds for on-site leachate treatment. The board ended up recommending a fee increase that would capture more funding up front, and require less borrowing to pay for leachate treatment equipment, he said.
The recommendation was to increase the 2027 tip fee from $51 pre ton to $56 per ton for municipal solid waste. The advisory board also recommended increasing landfill fees to $38.50 a ton for contaminated soils, $21 a ton for alternate daily cover, and to $40 a ton for construction and demolition waste.
Schroeder said part of the increased tip fees for solid waste would be used for leachate treatment at the landfill.
"How that's going to be designated or set aside is to be determined yet," he said.
Commissioners voted to approve the tip fee increases.
In a separate action, commissioners voted to approve a 2027 operating budget of about $2.9 million for the landfill.
A third action that commissioners approved was to apply to the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR) for funding to build a leachate treatment facility at the landfill. The LCCMR makes funding recommendations to the Minnesota Legislature for environment and natural resource projects.