Maysville-Mason County Landfill Director Todd Leonard discussed the landfill during a meeting of the Maysville Rotary Club on Tuesday.
Leonard said the landfill began operations in 1997.
“Everybody asks how big the landfill is and it’s about 800 acres; owned by the county. Roughly 2 million cubic yards have been filled at 252 cubic yards a day,” he said. “We’ve had 1.7 million tons of trash that has been received. Only 35 percent total air space has been filled and we have 3.7 million cubic yards remaining, which puts us 40.24 years before we’ll be in closure.”
According to Leonard, the expected date of fill is May 2059.
Leonard said managers, operators and compost operators are re-certified every five years, with monthly safety meetings.
“From 2016-2018, this job was listed as the fifth dangerous/fatal job in the United States with a total of 30 average fatalities every year.”
He also said he attends a waste expo every year to hear different topics related to the landfill, as well as training with the Solid Waste Association of North America.
The sewer line at the landfill was also discussed. The sewer line is 27,543 feet.
“My favorite project was the sewer line,” he said. “It was finished last year in September and we actually started on it in September 2011. It was a USDA loan for $1.6 million and multiple agencies were involved. It provided a long term solution for facility leachate.”
Leonard said the sewage line came in under budget and there is money left over that will be used.
As far as construction, Leonard said the landfill is in the last phase, which is phase six.
“This is going to be the last phase,” he said. “We have cell construction and liner modification and the proposed CDD landfill.”
According to Leonard, the total area will be 6.2 acres, will be located on the lowest elevation of permitted footprint, there will be an emphasis on storm water division, a two-year notification to USFW for Indiana bat determination and a major modification for liner.
The construction on the demolition/debris landfill will be located in the northeast of the contained landfill and will only accept construction material and will have an engineered clay liner and a leachate lagoon for leachate holding prior to testing and discharge.
Leonard discussed a leachate spill that happened in 2018.
According to Leonard, a leachate spill happened in September 2018 and was remediation was completed in February 2019.
“There was about nine inches of rain over three days and the pumps failed the facility, black water entered the pond,” he said. “The pumps ended up being clogged with some kind of foam rubber substance and it burned them out. The storm water in the lagoon co-mingled in the middle fork. We notified the appropriate agency and the lagoon water was pumped to the on site sewer station.”
Leonard showed pictures of what the area looked like after the spill.
“After we cleaned up, we realized it was time to do some upgrades,” he said.
According to Leonard, the capacity was restored to sediment basin, phase three pumps have been upgraded, phase three and phase five can now operator independently, problem pumps have been isolated to sediment barrel, the sewer line received a hard break in, average of 3 million gallons a month for the first four months with a normal flow of 1.7 million gallons. The sewer line saved over $1 million in leachate hauling cost for the incident.
