Tama County Landfill seeks help from City of Toledo
By CHARLEY TOWNSLEY, CENTRAL IOWA PRESSTOLEDO - The collection lagoon for the leachate in the new cell at the Tama County Landfill has reached capacity and landfill officials and consultants need a place to go with it.
The leachate, or liquid, is a product created at landfills and something which is planned for.
A new cell was built at the Tama County facility north of Toledo with a lagoon to hold the leachate until a time of year when it could be re-circulated over the area. However, a change in DNR policy no longer allows that material to be distributed in that manner.
Rick Yoerger, with P.E., Midwest Environmental Consulting in Marion, was the consulting engineer when the new cell was established and was present at the meeting to help explain the problem.
"When we were working on the new cell, the design included a lagoon for temporary holding with the idea of re-circulating," said Yoerger. "The plan received Iowa DNR approval before it was ever let for bids. However, as soon as the cell was completed and we we're ready to use it, we learned standards had been changed and we were no longer allowed to re-circulate."
The lagoon got to the point where it was one to two days from overflowing when Yoerger found a location that would accept Tama County's Landfill leachate. "We've been hauling it to Cedar Rapids for about a month - 5,000 gallon at a time - but that is going to be costly," Yoerger said. "I would estimate that to cost about $150,000 a year, in a normal year. This year could be even more with all the rainfall we've had."
A logical solution would be to find someplace closer to dispose of the liquid.
"Many cities will not accept anything from outside their county," Yoerger said. "We were fortunate to find a place that would."
Yoerger proposed to transport the leachate to the City of Toledo for disposal which raised some eyebrows on the part of the Toledo City Council.
"I have a lot of reservations about this," said council member Kyle Chaska. "We're near the start of building a new $4 million waste water treatment plant because we're not in compliance now," he said. "It concerns me that we're going to take on more potential problems."
According to city officals, in the past they have always been warned by the DNR, not to do something like this. Lindsay Beaman, of Snyder and Associates in Cedar Rapids, is part of the team planning the new Toledo treatment plant.
"I have been doing some research since I was notified of this problem," she said. "Jim Stricker, Iowa DNR, assured me there would be no problem to the discharge from the City of Toledo if they took this on. There is not enough harmfull chemicals involved to significantly change the discharge standards."
What was proposed was a 90-day emergency agreement while further study could be done between the city and the Landfill Commission, along with the consultants and DNR.
Chaska moved to accept the leachate effective immediately and the city would negotiate terms for any long-term agreement.
