Landfill to use liner to cap cell

Crystal Nelson
The Montmorency Oscoda Alpena Solid Waste Management Authority Board decided Friday morning on the material it will use to temporarily cap Cell A.

The board decided to use liner instead of clay to cap the waste holding cell.

“With a temporary cap we could just use clay, but we are going to go ahead and use liner and it’s going to cost us more, however what we’ll save in leachate hauling will more than pay for itself,” said Administrator Sandy Cunningham.

The type of liner it will use is still under discussion. However the board is considering low linear density polyethylene, which costs approximately 43-55 cents per square foot.

The board also explored the design plans of two lagoons that would store leachate. The lagoons combined will be able to hold a total of four million gallons of leachate.

“The larger, obviously, that we get, the more landfill space we have, the more leachate we have to treat,” Cunningham said. “We collect it, haul it off site and then we dispose of it at the treatment plant in Alpena and it’s costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. That’s why we’re trying to explore the lagoon option.”

The board also approved of two monitoring wells.

“We’re going to put in two wells, one up-gradient, one down-gradient of the proposed lagoon area,” Cunningham said.

Prior to the installation of the lagoons, background sampling of the ground water is required.

The board voted unanimously to adjust the 2008 budget. The budget was increase by $214,077.50 mostly to allow for the salary of a new part-time employee, the capping of Cell A, and the increase of leachate hauling.

Crystal Nelson can be reached via e-mail at cnelson@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5693.