Public Input Incidental To Capping Of Landfill

State and county officials have already decided to spend up to $5 million to cap the old Greenacres Landfill.

Now, they want to know what taxpayers think of the plan.

The landfill cleanup plan will remain open for public comment through Nov. 4, the state Department of Ecology announced.

But regardless of the feedback, the work will proceed.

Workers will begin capping the former landfill next spring. The project should be complete October 1998.

“There are no options,” said county utilities director Bruce Rawls. “It will be done. But we’re not necessarily in agreement that it causes a threat.”

Citizens are invited to offer their opinions on the work and especially ideas to improve the plan to cap the old landfill.

The 40-acre landfill, south of Interstate 90 near the Liberty Lake exit, was closed 25 years ago. Since the mid-1980s, the state and county have wrestled over whether to install a cap over the site. The state maintains that the site leaks dangerous metals and chemicals, polluting the Spokane-Rathdrum Paririe Aquifer beneath it. The county claims that pollution levels are barely measurable.

“It’s been sitting there dormant for a long period of time,” Rawls said. “That’s one of the reasons we didn’t think it was a threat to human health or the environment.”

The escaping nastiness includes arsenic and manganese, said county hydrogeologist Bill Wedlake. But, he added, “Most things (the state) was concerned about were barely above clean-up levels.”

Still, county commissioners last month agreed to go along with the plan. The state had threatened to do the work itself and charge the county $15 million for the work.

Bill Fees, who is handling the project for the Department of Ecology, was not available for comment.

As the plan stands now, half of the $5 million would come from the state, the other half from the county.

Caps were also used to seal off the former Mica and North Side landfills.

They consist of a layer of sand topped with fabric and plastic, then more sand above the plastic. Then topsoil, grasses and wildflowers. And in this case, it will be fenced off, Rawls said.

The county had proposed pumping water out of the landfill and treating it.

The state disagreed, and in 1994 ordered the county to cap it by 1998.

Now, the former landfill is gently sloping and overgrown with native grass. The area around it is slated for a major subdivision - The Highlands, a 640-lot development lined to the east by Liberty Lake Drive.

Mike Taylor of Taylor Engineering, a firm that had been working on the project, said he doesn’t know when work will start on the subdivision.

Valley companies and families first used the landfill in the 1940s. In the 1950s, private operators deeded it to the Greenacres township. The county took over operation in 1967. It closed five years later.

Since it was the last operator, the county assumes responsibility for the landfill until the cap is complete.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Greenacres Landfill to be capped

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: WRITTEN COMMENTS The Washington State Department of Ecology is accepting written comments regarding the landfill plan until Nov. 4. The agency said it will review and respond to all of the letters. Comments can be sent to: William J. Fees, Site Manager Department of Ecology Eastern Regional Office 4601 N. Monroe, Suite 202 Spokane, WA 99205-1295