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Will County committee briefed on landfill expansion options, faces 1.4M-cubic-yard soil relocation hurdle
Summary
A county presentation laid out two expansion options — a vertical option adding ~24½ years and a combined horizontal/vertical build adding ~36.9 years — but officials said a 1.4 million cubic-yard soil stockpile on site must be relocated before the horizontal plan can proceed.
Will County’s Landfill Committee heard technical briefings March 10 on plans to extend the life of the county’s permitted landfill and the barriers that must be overcome to do so.
A presenter for the project told the committee the existing permitted landfill covers about 223 acres, has a top elevation near 795 feet above mean sea level and roughly nine years of remaining capacity based on recent throughput. The presenter said geologic logs and new field work show about 70 feet of silts and clays over bedrock and described a potentiometric map indicating groundwater flows east to west toward the Displayplains River.
The presentation described two engineering options. “This option will provide approximately 24 and a half years of life to the county,” the Presenter said of the vertical expansion, which would regrade slopes to roughly 4:1 and raise a peak elevation to about 965 feet. A combined horizontal-and-vertical plan would add more capacity: “approximately 36.9 years of additional life on top of that nine years,” the Presenter said, explaining that new northeast cells plus piling on existing units produce the extra years.
But officials said a major practical constraint is an existing soil stockpile at the site. The Presenter said the stockpile is roughly 1.4 million cubic yards and would have to be relocated to develop the horizontal expansion. The team has discussed moving the soil to adjacent property controlled by Local 150, but the presenter said other options are farther away and more complicated.
Committee members probed cost and timing. A member asked whether the county would bear construction costs; the Presenter said the county does not anticipate direct construction costs for the landfill build-out because the county would permit and bid the project to a private operator, though an installation budget request for related equipment or installation work could appear in future county budget cycles. The Presenter recommended seeking permits for both vertical and horizontal options so the county would not need to redo engineering later, and said the county could begin using the vertical expansion while solving the soil-relocation issue for the horizontal option.
On soil quality, Mr. Mand asked whether the stockpile’s material could be used on farmland. The Presenter said the soil is clay-rich and “would not be good for farmland per se,” though it could be reused for regional projects if enough projects were found to absorb the volume.
The committee did not take a formal vote on the expansion at the meeting. The committee approved the February 10, 2026 minutes earlier in the session; Hickey moved and Brooks seconded the motion, and the roll-call vote carried.
Next steps spelled out by staff include further engineering, groundwater and traffic studies for the siting application, and outreach to potential relocation partners for the soil stockpile. The presenter said the team will continue preparing the siting application and bringing updates to the committee as experts on traffic, land-use compatibility and real-estate impacts are added to the project team.
