If the city of Grand Forks builds a landfill on its southwest outskirts, in roughly the direction the city has been growing, it may one day face the situation Fargo's had to deal with for decades.
Like all landfills, Fargo's has had to deal with garbage juice, loose garbage blown about by the wind and the smell of putrefaction. But unlike many landfills, Fargo's is in city limits.
As the city's public works director Bruce Grubb put it: "When you have an urban setting for a landfill, the issues that are kind of inherent with all landfills are even more magnified."
Close to homes
Originally built in the 1950s and expanded in 1980, the landfill is in the heart of the Sheyenne Industrial Park in the city's northwest, not far from its border with West Fargo, N.D. The nearest homes are about a half-mile away, though Grubb said most of them are on large lots and the owners operate industrial businesses on the same lots.
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Still, even in a heavy industrial zone, there are heightened expectations of a landfill.
One of the biggest problems was flying garbage. A chain-link fence around the landfill and vigilant patrolling wasn't enough, plus the garbage caught in a fence didn't look a whole lot better than garbage on the streets. So, the city looked around and saw a solution already in use to the north.
"Fargo has followed Grand Forks' lead, and we've now put in place a transfer station and baling facility," Grubb said. Besides making garbage more compact - you can pack more into a landfill - a baler also eliminates loose garbage and squeezes out a lot of the moisture that makes garbage stink, he said.
Dealing
with the stinkTo deal with the smell, Fargo at first planned on a conventional gas flare system where the garbage is covered up with dirt, a system of wells dug into it to collect the gas and flares installed to burn off the gas. But, luckily for the city, a neighboring Cargill oilseed processing plant saw a use for that gas, which it could use to heat its boilers for a lot less than the cost of natural gas.
The two sides agreed to split the cost of the project. The city paid for a gas collection and treatment system, Cargill paid for a boiler that could use either natural gas or landfill gas and the two split the cost of a 1.5-mile pipeline. The system came online in 2002.
The cost to the city was about $800,000, but Grubb said it will break even next year. After that, the city makes a profit, he said, and can expect to do so for about 47 years, which is how long computer models show the gas will last.
Heating the facilityThen, last year, Minnkota Power Cooperative raised the price it was willing to pay for electricity enough to make an investment in a generator worthwhile for the city. That is why it recently paid $700,000 for a 925-kilowatt generator that will go into operation Sept. 17, according to Grubb. Waste heat created by the generator will be used to heat the landfill's baling facility.
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The generator will pay for itself after about 2½ years.
As for the garbage juice, being near the city actually helped, Grubb said. Instead of having to build a treatment pond, he said, the city just runs it into the city's wastewater treatment system.
Tran reports on City Hall. Reach him at (701) 780-1248 or ttran@gfherald.com or see his blog at www.areavoices.com/gfhcitybeat .
