Michigan landfill expansion makes room for leachate pretreatment facility

A municipal landfill in Midland, Michigan, has purchased a 10-acre parcel of land to expand its current maintenance space and provide space to pretreat its leachate, reports the Midland Daily News.

The property is the former location of Fritz Enterprises, a scrap metal recycler, which left behind a large warehouse building. The warehouse building will be used for office space, additional storage and as a workshop to provide maintenance on landfill equipment.

The land was purchased for $875,000, including $462,500 from the city’s landfill fund and $412,500 from the city’s general fund.

Scott O’Laughlin, landfill superintendent for The City of Midland Municipal Landfill, says before the city purchased this property, equipment was repaired in the wash bay, which is meant to be used for spraying off equipment that has been used in the garbage.

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“So, if that machine needs parts and it’s parked in there for a week, I can’t wash any equipment; we can't do maintenance on any other equipment,” he tells the Midland Daily News. “Now, we have some options and some additional space. It can be better outfitted as a maintenance facility versus just a storage facility where we do maintenance.”

O’Laughlin says the purchase of the property represents a “significant investment” because it provides space to build a leachate pretreatment facility.

Leachate from the landfill is currently sent to the city’s Water Reclamation Facility to be treated. Once the facility receives its renewed permit, new restrictions will be set for the levels of contaminants that can be treated there and the landfill will have to treat its leachate and remove some of those contaminants on-site. 

The newly purchased land, which runs parallel to a sanitary sewer line, provides the required space to build a leachate pretreatment facility.