News Releases - 2000

Illinois FIRST Funds Allow Work to Begin on Landfill Cap

Springfield, Ill. -- Construction on a cap for the abandoned Western Lion and Service Disposal #1 Landfill sites in Coles County began this week, with funding from Governor George H. Ryan's Illinois FIRST program.

The sites are among 33 Illinois landfill sites that are environmental threats and in need of cleanup. The legislature appropriated the funds and Governor Ryan signed the funding measure in June 1999, which allowed these and other cleanups to proceed.

Patrick Engineering of Springfield prepared the design and Bodine Environmental Services of Decatur was awarded the contract to construct a new protective clay cap on the 66-acre landfill site. The surface of the landfill will first be reshaped to improve the slopes for drainage. The new cap, consisting of two feet of compacted clay, two feet of uncompacted clay and six inches of topsoil, will be installed, replacing the old cap of loose gravel and sparse vegetation. A fence will be installed around the entire site upon completion of the new cap, and the topsoil will be seeded with prairie plants and grasses.

The design of the new cap will cause rainwater to flow off the landfill rather than into it, preventing further production of leachate. The Illinois EPA recommends no public uses of the landfill after it is capped. Human activity at the site could cause the cap to erode. This could allow water to enter the landfill and produce more leachate, which could pollute nearby Riley Creek. Riley Creek is a Class A stream. Class A streams are among the top 5 percent in quality in Illinois. Potentially dangerous methane gases will also be released from vents and flares at the site for some time.

Bodine Environmental Services expects to be finished with the cap and begin seeding the topsoil with prairie plants and grasses by late fall 2000. The total cost of the final cap is estimated at $3.5 million. This is in addition to the $350,000 that was spent in 1999 to pump out leachate and transport it off site for treatment.

The Illinois EPA discovered in May 1994 that Larry McGrath, the owner of the landfills, had begun excavating a trench in an area of buried waste without a permit. A temporary order from the Illinois Attorney General's Office required that all operations stop by January 20, 1996.

In June 1997, Illinois EPA discovered that the trench had filled with 35 to 40 feet of leachate, rainwater that had traveled through the landfill and contacted waste. The leachate pit occasionally overtopped its banks and flowed into nearby Riley Creek.

When the owner declared bankruptcy, the state contracted work to dewater the pit and fill it with construction debris and other clean fill material. Over two million gallons of leachate were hauled to Mattoon's publicly owned wastewater treatment plant. Illinois EPA is placing a lien on the property which requires the owner to pay incurred costs before he can use the site