Council OKs contract to accelerate landfill cell construction

City council members took aim at critical measures Monday evening to address the city's landfill capacity emergency amid mounting concerns of a potential shutdown.

A key course of action saw council members approve an expedited $1.1 million contract with M-CON, LLC, to excavate landfill cell 8, one of the city’s top priorities to alleviate long-term capacity concerns and limit ongoing disruptions to the community.

City leaders are hopeful the new cell will be open and operational by October, a move that could put to bed long-term concerns surrounding the facility's capacity crisis. Officials are also laying the groundwork for development of cell 9 to ensure long-term stability and hopefully prevent another emergency. 

"We're doing that so we're in a much better position when 8 starts filling up," City Manager Mike Schumacher said during a work session Monday. 

As an added measure, the city announced last week that it is implementing a voluntary waste reduction plan to encourage haulers to reduce monthly waste by 30%, with the goal of buying additional time and ensuring the landfill isn’t forced into a shutdown by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

Public Works Director Abe Forney said three businesses to this point have agreed to reduce waste, albeit minimal reductions. The landfill takes in roughly 18,000 tons of waste a month amid a five-year influx of waste that helped fuel the emergency. 

"We need the reduction to give us some breathing room," Schumacher said. 

The city has also agreed to cut 30% of its total landfill waste, roughly 16,000 tons a year, by slowing planned demolition work moving forward. 

"If you want to recycle, anything that you can do to help reduce some of that trash that's coming into our landfill, we'd be all for," St. Joseph Public Works Director Abe Forney said.

Further action could be taken if waste is not reduced or if the city’s request for additional temporary space with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources is not approved.

Conversations between city officials and the DNR have intensified in recent weeks in an effort to find solutions. Recent discussions with the agency have reportedly been positive according to city officials. 

The DNR is expected to provide a response to the city by the end of the month. 

“We’re using our engineers and we’ve got a lot of people with our eyes on it and making sure that we see all the scenarios that could happen. but if those vertical expansions get approved, that’ll buy us a couple of months and then we’ll have the new cell open by then,” Forney said. 

The agency gave authorization to the city last week to open several small pockets to move some waste from a massive backlog that's accumulated due to a 50% increase in waste over the last five years. 

The landfill saw its yearly waste double from 110,000 tons per year to more than 215,000 tons beginning in 2019, a situation driven by failures to raise dumping fees over the last 20 years, inaction that incentivized haulers to come to St. Joseph. Amid the influx, cell construction delays and strained resources - factors that have created the backlog and put the facility on the brink of reaching capacity and shutting down.

Another bill approved Monday, one that required a work session prior to the council meeting for further discussion, will allocate $250,000 to cover expenses for engineering services to help meet growing workload demands and ensure regulatory compliance.

Due to staffing shortages, the city's current engineering company also has been assisting with additional trash compaction surveys, gas analysis and truck screening activities. 

The firm is normally responsible for a set number of services, including quarterly drone and topographic surveys and  weekly waste inspections, services critical for providing accurate evaluations of remaining landfill space and assisting vertical expansion requests with the DNR.  

"With the the amount of trash that's coming in. We've been doing a lot of things with the DNR's approval to make sure that our airspace is accurate. Resting some of the material that's out there. We're doing everything that we can to make sure that we're compliant with the DNR," Forney said.