Lake County staff outlines landfill expansion, leachate controls and $4 million EPA grant bid
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Summary
County staff described short- and long-term plans for the Lake County landfill, including staffing needs, lining a new 8.6-acre cell that would extend capacity about a decade, requirements for leachate collection, and a pending roughly $4,000,000 EPA grant the county applied for to expand recycling and composting programs.
Lake County staff presented short- and long-term plans for the county landfill during the Board of County Commissioners work session, describing staffing gaps, engineering work on a lined cell and a pending federal grant application to expand recycling and composting.
Michael Irwin, a Lake County staff member who led the presentation, said the county is recruiting at least one worker and needs additional commercial driver's license (CDL) operators after a recent departure. "He's one of our CDL drivers, so that kinda hurts us a little bit," Irwin said, describing short-term staffing needs.
Irwin said the county is completing engineering work and expects approval of an engineering/operations plan (EOP) "by early next year," which would allow the county to begin administrative steps and construction on a lined cell. He described the cell footprint under discussion as 8.6 acres and estimated the additional capacity would buy "about 10 years, 10 to 15 years" before the next expansion would be needed.
Irwin described elements required for future landfill development, including a leachate collection system to capture runoff and either recycle it on-site or send it to sanitation for treatment. He said the lining requirement makes that work "quite expensive" and that significant earth-moving would be required before lining could occur.
On longer-term goals, Irwin said the county applied for an Environmental Protection Agency grant to expand recycling and to support composting and anaerobic-digester technology that could generate power for landfill operations. "It's about 4,000,000," Irwin said of the EPA grant request and added the county had advanced to the next step in the application process in June. He said award notifications were expected by December but cautioned the timing could shift.
Irwin also flagged the possibility that trucks from neighboring counties bring waste into the Lake County landfill. He noted a comment from the sheriff that staff could not routinely stop and search incoming trucks without a warrant, limiting the county's ability to police out-of-county loads at the gate.
Why it matters: the EOP approval, cell lining and grant award would shape the landfill's capacity and costs for the next decade, affect recycling and composting services available to residents, and determine whether the county will accept or attract more out-of-county waste.
Background and next steps: staff said they expect to pursue EOP approval early next year and will await the EPA grant decision; staffing hires and CDL training are near-term tasks. The county also discussed leachate collection design and potential reuse or treatment routes as part of project planning.
