Cumberland County’s Ann Street Landfill will be out of room by 2030.
The landfill has operated at 698 Ann St. since 1980, when it moved from Cliffdale Road.
Relocating a landfill or starting a new one is not an easy task. It takes several years to build one and get all the state and federal permits required to operate it. Besides, there’s no land available for another landfill in Cumberland County, according to a county study of trash removal alternatives.
Time is critical, said Amanda Bader, director of the Cumberland County Solid Waste Management Department, during an interview with CityView.
“Time is the biggest challenge. Time is what we don’t have,” Bader said. “We need to move forward.”
Bader started with the county in December 2018. She previously was the county engineer and solid waste director for Harnett County. Bader has a bachelor's degree in environmental engineering and a master's degree in civil engineering, both from North Carolina State University.
Bader on Monday briefed the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners for a third time since December, telling board members that in seven years, the county will no longer have room for the garbage generated by residential and commercial customers.
To avoid a total shutdown of the landfill, Bader and her staff proposed a plan to extend its life.
The first phase is to build a transfer station at the Ann Street Landfill. The county would continue to collect trash there, then load it onto trucks and haul it to another landfill that the county would contract with. Meanwhile, the county would expand the Ann Street Landfill on county property immediately to its west. That land, according to Bader, is former landfill property that has not been lined, which now is a requirement for landfills.
The transfer station, according to the plan, would alleviate some of the tonnage of garbage on the current site and give the county time to expand it. But getting all the state and federal permits in order and constructing the expansion will take about five years. Once the expansion is complete, the county can ease off transferring garbage elsewhere.
Building the transfer station would cost about $5 million to $6 million, Bader said. The cost of collecting, hauling and dumping garbage to another location is still unknown. The county has asked for bids on that contract, with a deadline of March 31 to submit them.
At the same time, Solid Waste Management employees would start “mining” the unlined balefill — a term for recently popular landfill technology in which waste is compacted into stackable bales that require less ground cover, according to SolidWaste.com.
Specifically, mining the balefill involves removing the trash, soil, and compost materials that were baled with the trash decades ago. The plan is to gain capacity in two ways, according to Assistant County Manager Brian Haney.
The first is to recover about 50% of the material in soil and compost material that can be reused as daily cover. The remaining material will go into the lined portion of the landfill where it will be compacted. Bader also hopes to recover metals that can be recycled.
To test the process, the county will first do a balefill pilot study to get an idea about the recovery rate for the mined garbage.
The second way to gain capacity will be by expanding the landfill footprint, according to Haney.
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The landfill operation previously baled the garbage and stacked it in pits that initially were unlined. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now requires them to be lined with clay and plastic. The county no longer bales garbage, according to Bader.
"Garbage is currently compacted with large, heavy equipment called compactors that have large wheels with cleats that reduce the volume of garbage in the landfill. Waste was compacted in the balefill many years ago with balers — something like a very heavy-duty cardboard baler — in a building, then were taken out to the balefill and stacked like bricks instead of using the large rolling compactors that are used now. We use dirt to cover the garbage and control odors. We cover the garbage with a large tarp every day,” Bader said.
Although county residents pay an “accessibility” fee with their annual property tax, the county's landfill operates on an enterprise system. That means the Solid Waste Management Department depends on the money it charges for landfill services for revenue and not the county’s general fund.
Public forums
A key element of the expansion plan is hearing comments and concerns from the public. The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality requires that as part of an environmental justice report. The report is supposed to help mitigate human health and environmental concerns related to operating a landfill near low-income and minority neighborhoods
Bader noted that 75% of the population within a one-mile radius of the Ann Street Landfill are minority residents. The county hired HDR Inc., which specializes in engineering, architecture, environmental, and construction services, to help it reach out to the community. HDR’s plan includes holding a public forum from 4 to 7 p.m. March 2 at the Department of Social Services building, 1225 Ramsey St.
The DSS meeting room will be set up with stations where staff members can give residents information about the expansion project and the landfill. Participants will be able to move around at their own pace, according to Haney.
Comments and opinions about the landfill also can be submitted on the county’s website at www.cumberlandcountync.gov/annstreetplan.
Bader said construction of the transfer station and the landfill expansion to the west should not “create any significant additional impacts on the local community.”
Haney said the county looked at other options for extending the life of the Ann Street Landfill, including looking for potential new sites within the county. There were no other locations that would qualify for regulatory and environmental permits, he said.
“This is the most practical option,” Haney said.
Bader said the public comments will be taken into consideration.
“This is not a one-and-done,” she said. “We would incorporate the feedback into the design of the transfer station and operations.”
Also, public comment will be an ongoing process, with periodic public forums.
City property option
Expanding the landfill on county-owned property would extend its life by at least two decades. However, expanding the landfill on adjacent city-owned property would increase the lifespan to four decades and significantly reduce the cost to the county.
The land in question is Milan Yard, an abandoned EPA Superfund city dump that was adjacent to the county landfill. At the county commissioners’ December briefing, former County Manager Amy Cannon told commissioners that the city is not interested in parting with that property. At Monday’s meeting, Bader said she is now negotiating with the city for the property.
“Negotiations are ongoing. It's a pre-regulatory landfill, an unlined facility," she said.
The county commissioners are not happy that the city has been slow to accept a deal on the availability of Milan Yard.
“It would save this community a lot of money,” said board Vice Chairman Glenn Adams during Bader’s briefing.
Commissioner Jeanette Council likened it to the city and county negotiations to house their respective 911 centers in a shared facility. Those negotiations failed and caused an 18-month delay in the county finishing its 911 center, Council said.
Efforts to get a response from city officials about the Milan Yard negotiations have been unsuccessful.
Adams noted that Cumberland County has one of the lowest rates for dumping debris in its landfill. The household landfill fee that is part of the annual tax bill currently is $56. That covers the disposal of household garbage, yard waste, and 10 gallons or 80 pounds of household hazardous waste a year.
By comparison, the fee in nearby counties for 2022 were as follows:
Construction materials are not included in that fee schedule and require an additional fee and dumping at another designated landfill. The $56 annual fee has been in place since at least 2017, according to public records.
The commercial rate for dumping at the landfill is $38 per ton, and people in private vehicles, such as trucks and SUVs, pay a $20 flat fee. Raising the fees would be a board decision made during its upcoming budget workshops.
