Author’s Note: This is the third and final installment in a multi-part look at the Alliance Municipal Landfill.
Anything that came about within your lifetime, looking back, cannot possibly be old. The Alliance Municipal Landfill, for example, has witnessed fewer years than I. Opening of Cell 2 was an intriguing assignment as a still young newspaper reporter. Expansion is expected again before the end of the decade. The site itself and the waste that ends up there each have their own life expectancy.
Landfill and Refuse Collection Foreman Clint Fankhauser described a practice to extend the capacity of where his loader operator now places the community’s baled municipal solid waste. “We are refacing the south side of the current cell’s slope to gain back some of the space – been doing it for two and half years now,” Clint said as we talked in his office recently. A shift from an 8 to 1 ratio to the steeper 3 to 1 was easy to spot during a tour later that morning. January snow accentuated the difference, adding texture to the fill dirt and garbage bales. Asked how much time the process will add, he replied, “Three to four years (more) on the current cell, then we’ll start the process of Cell 3.”
Of course, hundreds, maybe thousands, of tons could have been kept out of both cells through recycling. Speaking for myself, I hope to see a big enough increase in what Keep Alliance Beautiful processes for tonnage to begin a downward trend at the landfill.
Landfills that ultimately fill an allotted volume have been closed and covered then evolve into green space, golf courses or another tract to benefit area residents. However, what lies beneath that par 4 hole will never disappear during the lives of the local high school girls golf team. “Metal and plastic will last forever,” Clint explained. “(You) can still find things across the street from 1900 (when the city dump was there). It will never truly go away. At least we have a lined landfill now. This is the difference between a landfill and a dump – won’t get into the water supply.”
Decomposing refuse produces methane, which Clint said is checked quarterly and turned in to the State of Nebraska. “We hardly ever have a trace because of our soil content, so harnessing it (to generate energy) is not feasible,” he said.
As far as size design and other attributes, Alliance’s landfill is similar to others in the area. Clint pointed out that Chadron is unique since theirs does not need an artificial liner because of a stone base there. He added that Alliance stands out for its use of a burn box, about the size of a large garbage rolloff, to reduce branches and brush to ash. Kearney is the closest with the same equipment. The City elected to add the box rather than replacing a tub grinder that had spit out our piles of mulch.
Although baled and non-baleable municipal solid waste (MSW) account for the largest share of materials that came through the gates in fiscal year 2023 (Sept. 1, 2022 – Sept. 30, 2023) other categories of material are reused or recycled. Contents of the blue yard waste containers become compost. Trucks haul out appliances with freon removed and taken to a local heating and cooling business. During 2023 tires were the most striking example. A tire amnesty week netted almost 444 tons that have since been relocated outside the state for recycling. Clint noted the City will apply for funding to host the collection in 2025 then every odd year. “No guarantee we’re going to get it, but we’ll apply anyway,” he said.
Concerning “green practices”, Clint said, “We are focusing on laying cover and staying in compliance. We started making a visibility burm on the north side to make it look better – all made out of materials we’ll continue to get.
“Pretty much everything out here is geared to environmental regulations. We check runoff water, methane, air emissions and all our practices are to keep that going.”