Landfill Operation Rising from Ashes after Fire

What do you do when a client experiences a devastating event? You get on the phone, get in your car, and get to work making sure your client has everything needed to keep operations running as smoothly as possible.

That was the case last fall after a fire caused major damage to the Highway G Landfill’s waste tipping floor and main office near Eagle River, Wisconsin. Heavy machinery was lost, computers and equipment were destroyed, and the office space was no longer usable.

After many discussions among landfill management, state and local officials, insurance representatives, and Ayres Associates employees, progress is being made. The damaged building will be torn down, and a public drop-off area will be redesigned. Quotes are being sought to bring in a double-wide trailer to use as office space. Ayres is assisting Landfill Venture Group (LVG), the group that oversees landfill operations, with the bid package for the existing building’s demolition.

Scott Maciosek, chairman of the LVG Executive Committee, said the future looks bright for the landfill after the devastating fire. “I feel pretty good about it,” he said, adding the group’s insurance company “treated us with ultimate respect. Once everything’s done, it will be pretty nice.”

Speaking of the future, Scott said LVG is working with Vilas County to expand the landfill by 71 acres, which should give it another 50 to 70 years of operational life.

In addition, LVG decided to shut down the landfill’s bioreactor, the last remaining active one of its kind among Wisconsin’s approximately 60 licensed landfills. A bioreactor is a device used to decompose refuse aerobically (with oxygen) before it is deposited in the landfill, where anaerobic (without oxygen) decomposition takes place. The landfill was using the device for volume reduction, but it was becoming too costly to run and repair regularly. (The graphic below explains how a bioreactor works.)

Ayres Associates has experts specializing in landfill and solid waste engineering.

The winter 2015 issue of our corporate magazine, TRENDS, had a feature story about the Highway G Landfill, for which Ayres Associates provides engineering services. Click here to request a copy of TRENDS.