BRISTOL, Va. — The cost to ultimately close the city’s embattled landfill will likely exceed $60 million, city leaders learned Tuesday.
Going forward the city expects to spend $54.7 million on work at the landfill, City Manager Randy Eads told the council during an 8 a.m. called meeting. That total includes Tuesday’s $12 million bid approved for sidewall liner odor mitigation work by SCS Field Services.
That $12 million is part of $28 million in pending projects cited by the Department of Environmental Quality’s expert panel which provided the blueprint for efforts to resolve environmental concerns with the facility. The landfill hasn’t accepted new waste since September.
Tuesday’s totals are in addition to $3 million spent during fiscal 2021-22 and $3.1 million spent since the current fiscal year began July 1 — nearly all of it unbudgeted.
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The total also includes $26.5 million in closure costs.
“I’ve got real concerns moving forward how we’ll continue to maintain these projects without putting a tremendous financial burden on the citizens of the city of Bristol Virginia,” Eads said.
The city plans to use a $2 million allocation from DEQ and the balance of its federal American Rescue Plan Act funding to help pay much of the $12 million for the sidewall mitigation work, but sources for the more than $42 million balance are yet to be determined.
“Obviously if we don’t get some assistance from the state and federal government, the city is going to have to absorb this cost on our own,” Eads said. “The plan, as it stands, is we would have to borrow additional funds to cover some of these costs. We’ll be pulling from the unassigned fund balance, we’ll use the ARPA money — $8.7 million remaining — and we’ve got hard decisions to make.”
Borrowing is something the city has avoided for the past six years because it already has more than $100 million in general obligation bond debt on its books and has worked for years to solidify its general fund, build reserves and repair its credit rating.
“This is going to be a very tough budget cycle. I think council needs to understand the decisions we’re going to have to make are probably going to be unpopular but necessary,” Eads said. “Citizens are not going to be happy but, unfortunately, these are the cards we’ve been dealt. We have to make the best decisions we can moving forward because we have to resolve these landfill issues. We don’t have a choice. We’re operating under a federal court order and I anticipate sometime we will be operating under a DEQ consent order.”
Mayor Anthony Farnum said the city will likely have to consider borrowing money to address some of these costs.
“I think everything is on the table, from ARPA money to asking the state for more money, asking for some federal help and then borrowing. I think all options are on the table,” Farnum said. “Ultimately we know there is work that needs to be done so our community doesn’t smell anymore. I don’t want to sound fiscally irresponsible; whatever needs to be done is going to get done regardless of the cost because we’ve got to get it fixed.”
Vice Mayor Neal Osborne said previous reductions in the city’s operating budget likely leave few areas that can be readily cut out.
“As a city, we don’t have the capability to do this on our own,” Osborne said. “This is something we need money from the state, we need money from the federal government … For us to increase the tax burden for the amount needed to cover this is undoable so we have to find outside sources for this money.”
Eads told the council nearly half of the total will be costs associated with the formal closure process.
“We knew that closure was something we had to take into account at some point and, as we have worked through this with DEQ, I anticipate we will close [both] landfills within the next year,” Eads told the council. “The [$20 million] estimate is based on assuming you fill the landfill to the top as it was originally designed. That closure cost could be more or less, based on the current situation.”
Consultants at SCS Engineers are developing a new closure plan.
Additionally, the federal EPA specifies landfill post-closure care consists of “monitoring and maintaining the waste containment systems and monitoring groundwater to ensure that waste is not escaping and polluting the surrounding environment” for 30 years from site closure. That period can be shortened or extended by the director of an approved state program.
Eads suggested the best solution to make sure there are no future environmental issues would be to remove all of the trash from the landfill and take it somewhere else, but that could easily cost $250 million.
At one point in the discussion, Councilman Kevin Wingard suggested the city consider reopening the landfill if all environmental issues are ultimately resolved — to capture lost revenues from commercial haulers and address the added costs of transporting city trash to another landfill. No other council members expressed any support for that idea and Councilman Bill Hartley pointed out city landfill operations always lost money.
The projects and estimated costs include:
Sidewall odor mitigation phases one and two $11.9 million
Benzene removal project $6.5 million
Grading and stormwater system $6.5 million
Gas well system expansion $2.3 million
Construction and shaping $1 million
Sub Total $28.2 million
Closure quarry landfill $20 million
Closure small adjoining landfill $6.5 million
Total $54.7 million
dmcgee@bristolnews.com — Twitter: @DMcGeeBHC
