Official Bannock County Website

Bannock County took over the operation of the landfill in 1979. In October of 1993, the old landfill, which originally opened in 1945, was closed in accordance with the new federal government mandates. A new sub-title D landfill was constructed in compliance with RCRA regulations and opened for operation on October 9, 1993. The construction costs amounted to nearly eight million dollars. Part of this great expense was a specially designed liner that protects the environment by keeping the waste from leaking into our groundwater.  The household debris is covered daily with tarps, designed for landfills, as well as soil to prevent garbage from being exposed to vectors, wind, and the atmosphere.

On an average, we accept approximately 350 tons of waste per day, which is up from an average of 233 tons per day in 1994. We operate both the landfill and transfer station with only 14 full-time employees.

Both our Pocatello and McCammon sites have construction/demolition debris sites. These help to prolong the life of the sub-title D landfill. Acceptable wastes at these sites are construction debris such as, concrete, asphalt, bulky wood, branches, limbs, roofing etc.

Our Pocatello site also includes an administration office where extensive, mandated record-keeping is performed. All of the landfill billing and collections is also performed at this site. The billing involves sending out approximately 200 bills per month and following up with collections on overdue accounts. The scalehouse technicians must track and screen all incoming loads, identify the type of waste and direct the public to their proper disposal areas.  In addition to weighing and tracking the waste on both the incoming and outgoing truck scales they must collect the appropriate gate fees.

History

Bannock County has owned and operated the landfill since 1979. Before that it was operated by many different companies including: Parks & Sons, Snake River Sanitation, and the City of Pocatello.

The old landfill was opened in 1943 and closed in 1993. During that time there was one million five hundred thousand tons of garbage disposed of at this site. The Bannock County Solid Waste Department worked extensively with Maxim Technologies to establish an environmental friendly and cost-effective solution for the contamination problems that may be the result of certain items that were disposed of at this old landfill. Several groundwater monitoring wells in addition to gas monitoring wells have been established.

Maxim Engineering Firm completed a draft Remedial Alternatives Analysis in December 2000 to identify technologies that may be feasible for water clean up. The alternatives were discussed between DEQ, Maxim Engineering Firm and Bannock County. A final proposal was submitted and accepted by DEQ and upon their acceptance, Bannock County began the process of cleaning up the contamination.

The "Cleaning Up" process began when the aeration tower was started with an official Ribbon Cutting on September 17, 2002. We test these wells on a quarterly basis and are very pleased with the results. Our new Engineering Firm, Cascade Earth Science continues to help monitor all of our Subtitle D wells. During the month of December we were cleaning up approximately 16.59 gallons per minute, and in July, 2006 we were averaging 30.89 gallons per minute. In 2005 we averaged 8.93 gallons per minute and in 2006 we more than doubled that amount with 17.99 gallons per minute due to the increase in precipitation.

Engineers estimate that it will take 30 years of operating the air stripper to clean up the TCE from the aquifer.