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Landfill siting
Lee A. Deets, manager of the Environmental Focus Group of A. T. Kearney, Inc., an environmental consulting firm, also spoke to the RLEP meeting. His topic was the considerations and costs involved in siting a sanitary landfill.
Mr. Deets has been involved in siting procedures for both hazardous and solid waste landfills for 17 years, “back when solid waste was garbage, and landfills were dumps . . . and I’ve been on both sides of the fence,” he added. It used to take $100 to get the permit for a landfill, he said; now the cost is between $500,000 and $1 million over the life of the project.
He cited some figures to illustrate the magnitude of the waste disposal problem confronting the country. “Each person generates between four and six pounds of solid waste per day. You would need a pit three feet wide, three feet deep and ten feet long to dispose of the waste generated by each person in one year.”
More than three billion tons of solid waste are produced in the United States each year.
Describing the siting of a landfill as “mission impossible,” Mr. Deets recommended, “Forget philosophy - shoot for criteria.” The site selection criteria should include:
• Available land area.
• Impact of processing and resource recovery.
• Haul distance.
• Soil conditions and topography.
• Climatological conditions.
• Surface water hydrology.
• Local environmental considerations.
• Land-use considerations.
Site selection and evaluation is the first phase of the landfill’s life. “If you own land and want to put a landfill there, the selection process is completed. But,” Mr. Deets cautioned, “if you own the site, chances are you have problems.”
In terms of the total cost of the
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