FAYETTEVILLE -- The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality agreed Thursday to spend up to $3.4 million to finish capping and repairing the closed C&L Landfill this summer in time for the city to continue building a regional park around and on top of the landfill site in the fall.
Officials broke ground in March on the first phase of a long-awaited regional park in the southwest corner of the city, but finding the money to repair the leaky landfill has been an ongoing concern since before the city acquired the property.
Fayetteville Regional Park
Construction on the first phase of the city’s regional park, at $10.7 million, is being paid for with:
• $5.3 million from the parks development fund
• $3.6 million in hotel, motel and restaurant-tax backed bonds
• $1.4 million from transportation bonds voters approved in 2006
• $375,000 in parkland dedication fees charged to private developers in the southwest quadrant of the city.
Source: City of Fayetteville
The cap on top of the landfill eroded over decades, causing waste to protrude through the surface, Benjamin Jones told the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission on Thursday. Jones is chief of the Solid Waste Management Division for the Environmental Quality Department.
Connie Edmonston, city Parks and Recreation Director, said Friday the repair will make the site safe.
"It's taking care and making certain everything is totally correct on the landfill, re-capping it," Edmonson said. "It's a good project for our city and the enviroment."
C&L Landfill was closed in 1976 and nothing was done to it until last summer when work on the first phase of the landfill cap replacement began. This spring, workers completed the first phase.
The second phase is projected to cost $2.8 million, and the $3.4 million spending limit is intended to cover any cost overruns. Bids are expected to be opened June 2.
The second phase will finish replacing the cap and installing a leachate-collection system, which is a network of pipes that collects leachate from the layers of the landfill and moves it to a well, where it can be managed. Leachate refers to liquid produced by solid waste.
Alison Jumper, city park planning superintendent, said she doesn't know what might be built on top the landfill. It may be a greenspace with no structures on top of it, Jumper said.
The Environmental Quality Department has restrictions on what can be built over the landfill, namely prohibiting anything that would puncture the new cap.
"We do have to follow their regulations," Jumper said. "So we'll just have to let them guide us."
Jones said a park over a landfill will not pose health risks.
"I think it's a good use of space," he said. "Obviously you can't do anything that's going to disturb the cap."
The city has been planning the park for years and broke ground on the project in March. The 33-acre landfill is in the middle of the property.
The 230-acre park is next to roughly 350 acres of wooded hillside on Mount Kessler.
NW News on 05/23/2015