This winter, a year-long delay seemed to be over in building a required landfill to accommodate Peoria waste after the current landfill is at capacity, but plans have not resumed.

The Peoria City/County Landfill Committee plans to construct Landfill #3, made necessary because the current Landfill #2, which opened in 1998, is expected to reach capacity in the next several months.

The process started 15 years ago, and during those years, Peoria Disposal Company (PDC) found no evidence of underground mines that could affect the proposed site, which is adjacent to existing landfill space, and state agencies agreed.

Building landfills above mines risks tons of trash collapsing into space below and possibly damaging landfills’ liners, which protect groundwater from contamination.

Landfill #3 construction bids had gone out, but in April of 2023, a reference to an abandoned underground mine (Black Jewel No. 2, which operated in the 1930s and ’40s) was noted in records of the Illinois Geological Survey — which neither PDC, the Committee nor the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) realized.

Required to notify the state EPA, the Committee stopped work and arranged for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) and engineers and consultants to investigate. From November through January, 10 exploratory borings were done, which confirmed Black Jewel’s presence but added that it was in a different coal seam than previously assumed and seemed to have been stripped out.

Now, Committee members believe that there’s no extraordinary risk from Black Jewel, and Landfill #3 construction could proceed.

“The news we received from IDNR was welcome and appreciated,” said Peoria County Administrator Scott Sorrel. “We now are waiting on IEPA to remove the hold on the construction permit issued to GFL [Green For Life Environmental] on behalf of the City-County Solid Waste Management Committee.

“This delay, caused by the extra analysis required by IDNR and IEPA, has put the opening of Landfill #3 in question,” he continued. “We are currently exploring all options and contingencies. At this time, it is too early in this exploration to have a definitive solution.”

GFL, which in 2021 acquired PDC and its holdings — including the contract to build Landfill #3 — hasn’t seemed eager to fulfill that obligation. In 2022, GFL asked to postpone Landfill #3, but the Committee rejected the idea and considered legal action to enforce the contract, and GFL dropped its request.

Also asked about how a Landfill #3 might now proceed, Landfill Committee chair Stephen Morris, who’s City Treasurer, said, “In short, I do not know. The City, County, and [the] Landfill Committee are exploring all options to ensure affordable and reliable waste disposal.

“The timelines for closure of Landfill 2 and opening of Landfill 3 remain unclear,” he added, “so we really have no choice but to prepare contingencies for various outcomes.”

Completing Landfill #3 will take a while, and it’s unlikely it will be ready when Landfill #2 is full. Contingencies include using a “transfer station” to collect and then transport garbage to some existing landfill, such as GFL’s Indian Creek Landfill in Tazewell County.