Consultant outlines two expansion options for Prairie View Landfill; investigation to begin

Marty Fallon, operations manager for Geologic Associates, told the Will County landfill committee that the county’s consultant team plans to pursue two parallel expansion concepts for the Prairie View Landfill: a vertical-only build within the existing waste footprint and a horizontal-and-vertical expansion to the northeast.

Fallon said the vertical-only concept would raise the final landfill form within the current footprint and would provide “approximately 24 and a half years of additional life.” The combined horizontal-and-vertical option would add roughly 10 additional years on top of that vertical gain but would require relocating the facility’s existing soil stockpile and vacating a roadway in the expansion area, Fallon said.

Why it matters: the county’s existing permitted landfill footprint is already partially built out and, at current filling rates, Fallon said the facility has about nine years of remaining capacity. The need to relocate a large soil stockpile and the site’s subsurface conditions will affect which expansion is feasible and how much additional lifetime the county can realize.

Fallon described the stockpile as containing “about 1,400,000 cubic yards of material” now and noted…