County SWMA projects complete

By ALEXANDER VIOLO

aviolo@mtelegram.com

CONSTABLE — The County of Franklin Solid Waste Management Authority has completed projects that opened a new call at the landfill and upgraded one of the county’s three transfer stations.

Todd Perry, executive director of CFSWMA and has been at the landfill for seven years, said recent work the authority has done includes opening a new cell at the landfill and a complete renovation of the transfer station in Malone, following similar work at the

The new cell, the facility’s seventh, that opened this spring at the landfill in Constable.

Alexander Violo/Malone Telegram

A dump trailer delivers waste to the county landfill in Constable.

Alexander Violo/Malone Telegram

transfer station in Lake Clear in the southern end of the county.

Located off County Route 20 in both Constable and Westville, the regional landfill takes waste from three transfer stations across Franklin County: Malone, Lake Clear and Tupper Lake.

“Malone and Lake Clear have both been upgraded and the plan is to update Tupper Lake next summer,” Perry told the Telegram during a recent tour of the facility, “When we pay off the bond for cell six at the landfill we will get money back and we will use that to finance the upgrades.”

According to Perry, opening the new cell at the landfill, the facility’s seventh, was accomplished without borrowing money, adding the self-funded project cost nearly $10 million.

“We paid for that in-house, saved the money to pay for it,” he said, “For the last five years we deposited into the cell addition fund and we financed the project out of that.”

Perry said the landfill sits on a property that is just under 1,000 acres, with seven cells currently located on the property.

“Seven is the new one, it’s bigger. The biggest cell we have and it’s 8.7 acres and should take eight to 10 years to fill. We just got into it in April.” he said, adding it’s 2.5 acres bigger than cell six, “There’s stone at the bottom and the garbage gets placed on that and all of the stone comes from Titus, it has to have a certain calcium percentage in it, if it doesn’t the garbage eats it.”

According to Perry, the authority pre-purchased the stone and transported it to the landfill over a couple of years to save the landfill some money and to have it readily available when the new cell was opened. Liners in the cells keep precipitation from entering the cell, he added.

Additional systems at the landfill ensure that any leaks in cell liners are quickly identified, according to Perry, who said two large silos at the landfill collect leachate.

Perry said rain, snow or condensation from a difference in temperature produces leachate or garbage water and there is a piping system for all of the landfill’s cells.

“Underneath the stone there’s a double, 80 millimeter membrane layer and also a clay liner at the very bottom,” he said, adding idea is to prevent leachate from getting into the ground “The liner has electrodes in it so you know if you have a hole. Another 80 millimeter layer goes on the top, it’s like a pillowcase. It all gets welded together so nothing gets out.”

Perry said cell seven was the landfill’s last one that was approved for permitting.

“We have to go back out for permits to expand, what we’ll do is we will try to get three cells approved, because regulations change so much you don’t want to go out too far,” he said.

According to Perry, once the cells are full they are capped after a settlement period.

“One here has grass on it but it’s not capped yet, the plan is to cap it next year,” he said, “You have a five-year settlement period once you close it because garbage does settle a little bit, you reshape it and have a contractor come in and put a cap system on.”

Perry said the landfill is permitted through the state and has to follow a max elevation for each capped cell. He said dozens of monitoring wells surround the landfill and quarterly water tests are designed to ensure that harmful contaminants are not making it into groundwater.

According to Perry, the landfill added a flare system that was engineered last year.

“We’re burning a lot more methane than what used to burn and right now we are trying to get into the carbon credit market, get paid for it,” he said, adding by burning methane off if helps prevent gas from building up, “If you don’t burn it off gas builds up and you start getting odors, our wells are all tied to the system.”

Perry said debris from the Flanagan and Lashomb buildings were transported to the landfill in the spring.

“When we know we’re getting a load of asbestos we build a berm with garbage, it has got to be three feet higher than the asbestos, we lay the asbestos down and we push the garbage over the top of it, and then put a machine on top” he said, “That way you aren’t pulverizing it into dust.”

Malone

In Malone, renovations to the transfer station on Brand Road were completed in early June, according to Perry, who said the renovations cost around $2.5 million.

Perry said they bonded the projects at the transfer stations in Malone and Lake Clear, and the plan is to selffund the Tupper Lake project.

Perry said the renovations in Lake Clear were similar to Malone, adding it’s the same building with the only difference being that they added an e-waste portion to Malone’s building.

Work on the new building in Malone started in November and ended in late January, according to Perry, who said a new scale house and scales were part of the upgrades.

Following the renovations at and upgrades to the transfer station in Malone the facility can now accommodate walking floor trailers, according to Perry, who said that’s where people dump their household garbage into at the transfer station.

“When they get to the landfill there’s no dumping, it just rolls out of the back,” he said, “They have a floor in them that walks the garbage off. There’s a lot less moving parts. Once it’s full a quick tarp system rolls over the top and they pull the trailer out an empty one comes in.”

Perry said the walking floor trailers can be filled with more garbage than dump trailers and are more efficient for the waste authority since they need less trips between the three transfer stations sending waste to the landfill.

“We were moving one box at a time before and now we have a trailer that moves four boxes, it’s less diesel and less travel,” he said, “It’s around 74 miles from the landfill to Tupper Lake.”

According to Perry, the decision was made to move forward with upgrades to each transfer station in the county in an effort to be proactive.

“There wasn’t a lot of maintenance done at each and I wanted to be kind of ahead of the game,” he said, “I started when I first took over, it was a goal, I started pecking away at it and just took them one at a time, every couple years, it should work out well, we’ll build one next summer and they should be good for the next 20 years.”

According to Perry, the new station at Tupper Lake will be a little smaller than the one in Malone.

“That’s why we started with Lake Clear, that’s the busiest, and then Malone second and finally Tupper Lake,” he said.

The waste management authority was formed under the state’s solid waste management policy, adopted in 1988, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

Perry said the authority has its own board, with seven members, and each board member is appointed by a county legislator. The regional landfill opened in 1994.

A new walking floor trailer at the transfer station in Malone. The walking floor trailers can transport more garbage and can deliver it to the landfill from the county’s three transfer stations more efficiently, according to Todd Perry, executive director of the County of Franklin Solid Waste Management Authority.

Alexander Violo/Malone Telegram