Crow Wing County is seeking legislation to add a landfill it shut down nearly 30 years ago to the state's Closed Landfill Program.
The landfill, which opened in 1974 and was part of the first batch of waste disposal sites permitted through the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, has been cared for by the county since its closure in 1992. It is one of the few landfills from that era not monitored through the state's program-an alternative to the federal Superfund program for cleaning up hazardous and polluted sites.
Chris Pence, land services supervisor, and Fred Doran, consulting engineer, told the county board Tuesday they believe it's time for the state to assume care of the closed landfill.
"I've been doing this kind of work for over 30 years, and the amount of risk at this site is very minimal," Doran said.
Representative of practices at the time, the unlined site was once the source of heavy groundwater contamination and the production of dangerous methane gas. There was no separate disposal site for household hazardous waste, and anything people threw away went into the landfill. Detection of volatile organic compounds in the groundwater in 1989 led the MPCA to list the landfill on its permanent list of priorities, with eventual closure by 1992.
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The county agreed to a 20-year period of post-closure care of the site, which included adding an impermeable cover to prevent rainwater and snowmelt from penetrating the garbage, water quality monitoring and methane gas capture. That agreement expired in 2013, and a follow-up agreement with MPCA has been under consideration ever since. In the meantime, the county continued its care for the site, which is located near the current landfill location and about 1 mile from the Mississippi River.
In 2016 at the behest of the MPCA, the county employed new testing techniques at one of its groundwater monitoring wells. Tests from two wells closest to the site returned results of contaminant levels above the federal limit allowed. Present in the groundwater was vinyl chloride, a man-made substance used in the manufacturing of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC.
"It is likely that vinyl chloride was present in these two wells at these low concentrations during 2012-2014 but were simply not detected due to the higher reporting levels," wrote Pence in a history of the site included in the board's packet.
The MPCA indicated it would require Crow Wing County to complete additional investigation and further corrective action concerning the contamination at the site-actions that could cost the county hundreds of thousands of dollars, Pence said.
Doran said Tuesday although the results were slightly above the allowed 2 parts per billion, the low levels detected were a far cry from the high levels once measured at the site. If the MPCA wants the additional work done at the site, he said, they should take over its care just as the agency has with 109 other closed landfills throughout the state. Among those are several closed landfills in central Minnesota, including ones in Crosby, Fifty Lakes, Long Prairie, Wadena, Longville and Maple Township, west of Pequot Lakes.
Pence said it's unknown why the county's landfill was not accepted into the state program in 1994, when it was first established. In 1998, the MPCA determined the site was not eligible because the county was applying treated leachate-or the contaminated, nutrient-rich water filtered through the landfill contents-from its operating landfill to the site. The agency considered the leachate waste, putting the county in violation of its agreement to discontinue waste disposal at the site.
In addition to seeking legislation to add the county's landfill to the state's program, the resolution passed Tuesday accomplished two other things: it approved a custodial plan for continued maintenance of the site for the time being, and also requested if the landfill is accepted, the state reimburse the county money in its financial assurance fund.
The financial assurance fund is a required pot of money, set aside in case of the need for emergency response at a landfill site. Pence said the fund for the closed landfill has about $400,000-although the county has spent a couple million dollars on caring for the site. He said it is the county's desire to keep those funds rather than the state taking the money along with control of the site. Pence said it would be transferred to the financial assurance fund maintained for the current landfill.
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The resolution passed 3-0, with Commissioners Rachel Reabe Nystrom and Paul Koering not present.
The next step is conversations with area legislators to determine whether any of them are willing to propose a bill in the state Legislature.
