St. Louis County outlines PFAS treatment, tip-fee cuts and long-term expansion plans for Virginia regional landfill

Dave Fink, director of the Saint Louis County Environmental Services Department, briefed the Virginia City Council on June 17 on the county’s current and planned work at the regional landfill in Virginia, including a new leachate treatment system designed to remove PFAS compounds, proposed capacity expansions and an upcoming contract that will bring additional regional waste to the site.

Fink said the county will install a roughly $22,000,000 leachate treatment system at the Virginia landfill and that the system is among the first in Minnesota — and among the earlier systems nationally — to target PFAS removal. “We’re putting a … $22,000,000 leachate treatment system that actually pulls PFAS out of the leachate,” Fink said during the presentation.

The presentation outlined several items the county described as central to its long-term plan: the leachate/PFAS treatment, a recent 10-year contract with WSSD to begin delivering waste to Virginia on July 1, 2026, and a planned, concurrent Canyon landfill development intended to increase regional disposal capacity.

Why it matters: County…