A Peoria-area landfill is close to full and city and county officials are racing to find a plan for what to do when it reaches capacity.
The saga unfolding with the landfills could lead to consumers seeing higher trash pickup rates. It could also lead to lower rates or rates staying the same, officials said. Those questions will be answered as the controversy unfolds and solutions are found.
What is happening with Peoria's landfills?
There had been a plan in place for years of what would happen when Landfill 2 could no longer take any waste — the aptly named Landfill 3 would be built, and Peoria-area garbage would be sent there.
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But Landfill 3 never got built. There were fears of a mine being located underneath the site for Landfill 3, which halted construction. Yet, now there is a belief there is no mine after all.
Construction, however, is still stalled, which has led to tense exchanges and possible lawsuits between Peoria County, the city of Peoria and GFL Environmental, the waste management company tasked with building and operating Landfill Three.
Peoria officials, GFL attorney have tense exchange over landfills
At a Peoria Landfill Committee meeting on Wednesday there was a tense exchange between committee chair Stephen Morris and GFL's attorney Brian Meginnes over who actually halted work on Landfill 3.
Meginnes implied the company was told to stop by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency while a permit was on hold. However, Morris said the city and county's position is that GFL put a stop on themselves and the IEPA has no halt on Landfill 3.
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Meginnes said the IEPA wanted to hold the permit until the situation with the mine was cleared up and said the agency wanted an opinion from an engineer before the project could move forward.
Peoria County and the city of Peoria do not believe that to be true.
"We disagree with GFL's position in this regard. Brian is a skilled attorney and he is an advocate for his client, but he is not speaking what this committee thinks, believes, or what the state said from our perspective," Morris said.
Morris told Meginnes they were not going to debate at the meeting Wednesday and reiterated it is the committee's position that GFL instituted their own pause on Landfill Three.
To which Meginnes replied, "Well, I didn't know that was your position."
Morris shot back: "It's been very clear that's our position, and if GFL attended these meetings they would perhaps know that was our position, but I am not gonna debate you on it. GFL's position is different than this committee's position and the city and county's position in this regard."
Lawsuit possible among other solutions to landfill problem
Thus begins the dispute between the parties that Morris said Wednesday could lead to a lawsuit. The committee held an executive session after its meeting on Wednesday to discuss potential legal action
Lawsuit or no lawsuit, the garbage in Peoria still has to go somewhere, and that is the immediate challenge facing officials.
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Morris said Wednesday the city and county will still pursue opening Landfill 3 with or without GFL's involvement, but that still does not solve the immediate problem of where the garbage goes when Landfill 2 fills up. That could happen anytime in the next five to 14 months.
In the meantime, there are other options on the table for the city and county, Morris said. Those include reopening Landfill 1, which may have some useable airspace, utilizing East Peoria's trash transfer station and using a landfill in Hopedale.
"It could be a transfer station, it could be a piggyback, there are a number of different options," Morris said. "It's not as though trash is going to be piling up in the streets. The question really is going to be about convenience and price."
Morris said a potential price increase would depend on where the trash is taken and would be dependent on things like transportation costs.
"It could result in a short-term increase, could result in net zero, could result in a decrease — it just depends on what we're able to workout," Morris said.
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