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 officials said the combination of treatment technology and land-use planning is intended to protect groundwater and provide a stable regional waste-management solution. The city’s financial exposure could shift if the county’s recommended tip-fee change is adopted: Fink told the council his fall recommendation would reduce the county tip fee for existing customers from a total of $68.93 to $49.36 effective Jan. 1, 2026, and estimated that change would save the city of Virginia about $130,000 annually.

Key details: - Current landfill footprint and capacity: The permitted footprint used for most years has been a 42-acre cell with a permitted volume of about 4,200,000 cubic yards. At current fill rates (about 55,000 tons per year, roughly 80,000 cubic yards), Fink said the original footprint had been projected to last about 20 years at those rates. - Planned additional volumes: Fink said the county expects to take roughly an additional 100,000 tons per year from Duluth and its joint powers partners under the WSSD contract. The conceptual expansion adjacent to the existing Virginia site could add roughly 12–15 million cubic yards of capacity; combined with the Canyon development the county described the two projects as creating facilities with multi-decade — the county described planning horizons measured in centuries for the combined system — capacity. - Geothermal capture: The county has installed a geothermal cell that captures heat from decomposing waste and will use that heat to help power the new leachate-treatment facility. - Recycling and programs: Fink described the county recycling facility as a mixed-processing facility located near but separate from the landfill. He said state requirements require counties to provide a recycling opportunity for any city in the county’s solid-waste management area with population over 5,000; the county currently subsidizes the Virginia program by about $500,000 a year.

Regulatory and planning steps: Fink said the expansion and expanded service will require the county’s 10-year solid-waste permit renewal, an environmental review (the county anticipates an environmental impact statement tied to the expansion because the county will accept more waste), and a certificate-of-need process by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). He described the MPCA as supportive of the county’s approach but said formal permitting is still underway.

Questions from the council and county responses: Councilor Motley asked about illegal dumping and whether that trend would undermine projected savings from lower tip fees; Fink said the county had hired a deputy focused on illegal dumping and established a fund to assist cleanups and that the county coordinates with municipalities’ blight ordinances.

What the county said it will seek next: state bonding for Canyon, continued environmental review and finalization of the permitting process. Fink said the county obtained a $200,000 state appropriation this year toward environmental review of the Canyon site and is pursuing additional state bonding.

Ending: The presentation was informational; no city action or vote followed the briefing. County officials said they plan to finalize recommendations later in the year and that the WSSD contract will begin deliveries July 1, 2026.