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Work group flags quarry rock, contractor talks as key constraint on Coffin Butte landfill capacity
Summary
At a Dec. 7 joint session of the Benton County Solid Waste Advisory Council and the Disposal Site Advisory Committee, subcommittee members said a major constraint on the Coffin Butte landfill's future capacity is that permitted landfill cells include a quarry area currently occupied by rock, and that Republic Services and Knife River are negotiating whether and how to remove that rock before landfill expansion.
At a Dec. 7 joint session of the Benton County Solid Waste Advisory Council (SWAC) and the Disposal Site Advisory Committee (DSAC), subcommittee members said a major constraint on the Coffin Butte landfill's future capacity is that permitted landfill cells include a quarry area currently occupied by rock, and that Republic Services and Knife River are discussing whether to remove that material before landfilling.
The meeting was a report-out from multiple subcommittees of the Benton County Talks Trash work group (BCTT). The landfill size, capacity and longevity subcommittee said the site development plan filed in 2021 lays out how permitted acreage and cell sequencing would allow continued operations, but that the quarry material complicates projections for when and how the landfill would move into the quarry area.
"It turns out to be a more complex equation than that," said Meeting chair (work group convenor), summarizing the subcommittee's view that physical parameters alone do not determine capacity. Subcommittee members said Republic Services has discussed quarry excavation with Knife River but has not shared firm outcomes of those negotiations with the subcommittee.
Members described three practical implications: (1) engineers and operators must decide whether to excavate quarry rock before filling, (2) if excavation occurs someone must accept and store or dispose of the excavated material, and (3) scheduling or financing excavation can shift who bears the cost and when cells become available. "There are a lot of dilemmas," the Meeting chair said, noting those trade-offs currently rest with Republic and Knife River.
Work group members also described a site development plan timetable that would require preparations to begin in the mid-2020s to move into the quarry area, and emphasized that the county's ability to plan depends on clearer information from the landfill operator. A subcommittee member who submitted a letter to the work group argued that Republic Services' contractual arrangements with outside customers affect when and how space is used and that those contract patterns are "a problem of Republic Services' own making."
Bill Brumman (as reported during the meeting) and other committee members said Republic Services is actively discussing whether Knife River can expedite aggregate removal to create space sooner, but that no firm schedule or written commitments were available to the subcommittee at the time of the report.
The subcommittee recommended continuing to press for timely information from Republic and its contractors so county planning and any consultant work can consider alternative waste-management options if quarry constraints shorten the landfill's usable life. The meeting record shows the subcommittees plan to keep meeting through February to compile information and refine scenarios for county review.
Background and next steps: Subcommittee members said the 2021 site development plan remains the county's primary technical projection for acreage and cell life. The subcommittee will continue to seek clarifying data from Republic Services and Knife River and incorporate any new information into the broader sustainable materials management planning process that the county is scoping.
