Garbage water leaks into storm water pond

Up to 3,000 gallons of garbage water leaked Tuesday at Kootenai County’s landfill near Fighting Creek and possibly drained into the facility’s storm water pond.

County officials who notified the public of the leak Thursday said they don’t think the leachate escaped the plastic-lined facility and got into the drainage system that eventually enters Fighting Creek and Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Idaho Department of Environmental Quality required the county to test the storm water pond to see how much, if any, garbage water is present. Test results are expected today or Saturday.

Solid Waste Director Roger Saterfiel said the leachate leak likely happened when large equipment, used to move garbage, scraped rocks into a clay dam that is used to contain the area. Saterfiel said that the leachate seeped through the rocks and across the plastic-lined landfill into a ditch, which is also lined. The ditch drains into the storm water pond that also has a plastic liner.

Because the substance traveled so far, Saterfiel said it’s unknown how much actually reached the storm water pond.

“This is the first time this has happened to us,” Saterfiel said. “In the scope of things, this is not a huge amount.”

If the tests show there is leachate in the pond, Gary Gaffney of DEQ said, it’s likely the county will have to pump all the pond water back into the landfill’s leachate pond.

The landfill recirculates the leachate into the garbage piles so it will evaporate.

Gaffney said the county landfill has never had any significant releases of leachate into the environment before.

The county will build a secondary clay dam around the garbage piles as a backup precaution, Saterfiel said.