JACKSON WORKING ON LANDFILL CLOSURE

JACKSON -- Work should start soon to meet an extended deadline for completing closure of the old Jackson city landfill.

The city was notified in February that a December, 1995 inspection revealed "inadequate vegetative cover and several erosion channels" at the landfill site.

The city and Allied Waste Management Inc., which took over the landfill in 1994, have until July 1 to get the problem corrected and complete closure of the landfill, officials with Missouri's Division of Environmental Quality say.

"It sounds like a whole lot bigger deal than it is," said Jackson City Administrator Steve Wilson.

Wilson said erosion has occurred on "a very small area" of the site.

The landfill, located on County Road 341, is a 15-acre site containing residential waste, Wilson said.

"It's not a landfill that's been open for hundreds of years and contains hundreds of acres of waste, he said. "It's a small facility."

The city has the "ultimate responsibility" for taking care of the site, he said, but Allied is maintaining it as part of the 1994 lease agreement.

"They planted some seed and threw down some straw and it didn't take," he said. "Obviously, you can't plant grass in the middle of winter, so they extended the deadline so Allied's folks can seed and straw again."

With the arrival of warm weather, Wilson said, "right now's a pretty good time to start planting some grass seed."

Jim Hull, chief of the Division of Environmental Quality's Engineering and Planning Section, said landfill operators have to make sure there's sufficient soil and vegetation cover to prevent leaching from the landfill site.

The Jackson landfill closed for business in April 1994, but the closure process, which includes plantings and erosion control, generally takes about six months, Hull said.

"The rules indicate it should be properly closed within 180 days, or six months. We're about a year and a half down the line. Closer to two years actually," he said. "I think we've been patient, and you've got to be somewhat reasonable. We haven't been able to get around to every one of the landfills."

Hull said the Jackson landfill was one of "almost 45 landfills that closed around the state at that time" because of the enactment of stricter federal regulations.

Completing closure has been a problem at "a handful" of that group of landfills, mainly because of problems establishing vegetation, he said.

State inspectors will check the landfill again after the July deadline, Hull said. If it's still out of compliance, the state could issue notices of violation or administrative orders requiring compliance. The process could include levying fines or other penalties, he said.

Jackson's solid waste is now being trucked to a transfer station in Cape Girardeau, and from there being shipped to a landfill in Dexter.

Allied is building a transfer station in Jackson on Lee Avenue. That should be open in May or June, depending on the weather, Wilson said.

The landfill was the subject of a legal battle when residents living near the site sued the city, arguing that city officials violated state open meetings laws in discussing the lease. They also contended the city lacked the authority to operate a landfill outside city limits and lease the site to a private industries.

Judges in the circuit and state appeals courts rejected those arguments, and the Missouri Supreme Court refused to hear the case.