Glendale Landfill Monitoring & Modifications Design

Ayres began working with the City of Glendale in 2011, providing groundwater and methane gas monitoring for the closed Bender Road Landfill. Additionally, beginning in 2014-15, Ayres has worked with the City, Rettler Corporation, and other stakeholders to provide modifications to the landfill’s design to accommodate a new, five-phase park and athletic facility development on and around the landfill.

The American Council of Engineering Companies of Wisconsin gave the project its 2021 Engineering Excellence Best of State Award, and the Environmental Business Journal awarded the project a 2020 Project Merit Award.

The City, working with designers and other vested partners, pursued the design and construction of a recreational facility on the approximately 15-acre municipal waste landfill, which ceased operations in 1976 and was closed and capped around the year 2000. The development includes a multi-use building, a small outdoor amphitheater, a playground, a memorial, two parking areas, roadways, and new utilities. Phase 4 includes a baseball field, press box, and batting cages, and Phase 5 will add smaller baseball fields and associated stormwater ponds.

Ayres’ initial role at the landfill was a combination of semiannual groundwater sampling and quarterly gas monitoring activities along with general cap inspection, and this role has continued through four two-year monitoring cycles. As the development aspects kicked in, landfill design modifications were required to accommodate the proposed site changes. Working in tandem with the clients, partners, and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR), Ayres has guided all plan modifications to date through the approval process. The recreational facility will impact the final landfill cover system, components of the landfill gas control system, and the landfill gas and groundwater monitoring networks, all of which required changes in design system components to address the new site development goals.

Our team worked with project stakeholders to review options for the redesigns and discuss design restrictions and criteria. Current landfill conditions were reviewed, and preliminary athletic field design plans and associated infrastructure and road development layout were discussed as part of preparing the four individual landfill closure plan modifications for WDNR review.

The landfill modifications contract included working with Rettler on oversight and permitting of the landfill modifications as well as preparing a final construction documentation report for each phase of the development activities.

• Bill Honea, Geologist
• Scott Wilson, Director of Client Funding & Strategy

• Environmental Permitting
• Landfills: Sanitary, Construction & Demolition
• Municipal Construction Observation