Kootenai County Solid Waste reported the final update on a pilot system designed to treat landfill leachate, county Director John Phillips told commissioners at the department’s quarterly meeting on Jan. 6.

Phillips said the county solicited local treatment plants, worked with Jacobs Engineering, and selected Dynatec Systems to provide reverse-osmosis and ultrafiltration equipment. Dynatec completed bench- and pilot-scale testing; a purchase order was issued in May 2025 and the county operated a pilot system for about six months. The treated water was hauled to a regional treatment plant identified in the transcript as HARBS beginning in October 2025 and tested by HARBS and a third-party laboratory, Phillips said. According to Phillips, the water met HARBS’s pretreatment and plant-delivery requirements.

The county determined the pilot successful and completed final payment for equipment in November 2025. Phillips reported the pilot’s total cost, including setup, engineering and operations, was approximately $1,600,000—below the $2,000,000 budget. He said the county has hauled “several hundred thousand gallons” of treated wastewater and that the volume could be approaching 1,000,000 gallons; he described those haul volumes as approximate. Phillips told the board the treatment system is winterized now but is planned to restart regular leachate processing in March 2026, weather permitting.

Why it matters: Leachate is classified as industrial wastewater and can contain PFAS, PCBs and high total dissolved solids (TDS), the director said. Having an on-site treatment capability reduces the county’s dependence on other publicly owned treatment works and provides an option during high-precipitation years when leachate volumes increase.

The county did not provide specific lab reports in the meeting; Phillips invited commissioners to ask questions during the rollout and said staff would continue to update the Board of County Commissioners as operations resume.

Next steps: The system is winterized for the season, and county staff expect normal processing to begin in March 2026, subject to weather and operational checks.