Crews working overtime to excavate new landfill cell

Working against brutal winter conditions as low as negative 10 degrees, crews forged ahead with the excavation of an urgent landfill cell project on Thursday in St. Joseph.

Contractors with M-CON have been tasked by the city to dig thirty feet below ground for excavation of the 7.2-acre Cell 8, a difficult venture given the icy and rock hard ground conditions to cut through.

The $1.1 million excavation project — which began in early February — is now half-way done, with the entire cell estimated to be complete in October.

“For them to be working through these types of conditions to get this project done is a feat within itself.” Public Works Director Abe Forney said. “These guys are really grinding. They’re working about six days a week and they’re working 12-hour shifts.”

To expedite the task, M-CON has been given a $25,000 incentive by the city if excavation is complete within 30 days, however if work should extend by 45 or 60 days there will be a $5,000 per day penalty.

Timely excavation is vital to ensure the next phase of work, installing protective ground liners, beginning on time in June.

With warm temperatures in the 50s forecast for next week, challenging conditions could easily shift from frost and frozen soil to mud, potentially causing delays.

“We’re using any of our guys to help them if they need something from time to time. We’re doing everything that we can to speed up that process,” Forney said. “Once it’s constructed, we anticipate it being around a three to five-year lifespan.”

While a new cell ensures new areas will be available long-term for waste intake, the threat of a soft closure still looms in the short term if what little space left runs out before then, meaning all trash haulers would be prohibited.

The city is in the midst of a capacity emergency as a result of the landfill seeing its annual trash intake double since 2019, from 110,000 tons per year to upwards of 220,000 tons.

Simultaneous delays with getting previous cells open, strained resources and challenges implementing waste reductions have created an urgent situation with wide-ranging impacts on local businesses.

City officials have been working closely with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, which regulates the landfill, and are hopeful that the agency will grant a request to relocate additional trash by early March, buying more time for the completion of the new cell.

“We’re working really well with the DNR to make sure that anything that we get done is going to get approved by the DNR as the process goes along,” Forney said.

If the DNR does grant the additional space, it would significantly reduce the likelihood of the landfill reaching capacity by July or August. However, all scenarios, even the worst case, remain a possibility if the request is not approved.

If the landfill is forced into a soft closure by the DNR, it would mean the facility would stay active and allow a very limited amount of waste, but local trash companies would be barred from dumping waste until the situation improves.

“We’re doing everything that we can to make sure that a situation like this never happens again,” Forney said. “We’ve got M-CON doing Cell 8. We’ve got our landfill guys working on Cell 9 while M-CON’s working on Cell 8.”

In-house city landfill crews have been working on Cell 9 simultaneously as M-CON forges ahead on Cell 8, an added measure to ensure long-term security and avoid another emergency.

Once excavation is complete for Cell 8, two feet of clay liner will be placed in six-inch lifts and compacted. A poly liner material will then be installed followed by perforated piping. Next, the piping will be covered with rock and finally, the entire bottom of the cell will be surrounded by a foot of sand with soil around its sides.

A voluntary waste reduction program has also been in effect since earlier this month, encouraging haulers to cut or divert 30% of monthly waste from the 18,000 tons received per month to create even more flexibility.

“We’ve got weekly numbers coming in, but for instance this week there’s a couple of trash haulers that aren’t coming at all, so they’re not accurate,” Forney said. “By the next time we have our Landfill Advisory Board Committee we’ll be able to report those numbers.”

The St. Joseph Sanitary Landfill encompasses a 14-cell facility, which primarily serves a four-county region including Andrew, Buchanan, Clinton and Daviess counties.