Garbage and landfills aren’t always the most interesting conversation topic. For many of us, our thoughts on trash stop when we drag the garbage can to the end of our driveway or toss a bag into a dumpster.
But big changes are coming regarding where your garbage goes and how it will be treated. Starting in July, garbage collected in Duluth and surrounding communities within the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District, publicly known as Resource Renew, boundaries will be hauled to the St. Louis County landfill in Virginia. Once there, the region’s garbage will become part of a new state-of-the-art leachate management system that contains and treats the dangerous “forever chemicals” known as PFAS.
St. Louis County’s Environmental Services Department has operated a landfill in Virginia since 1993. It’s the only mixed municipal solid waste landfill in northeastern Minnesota. The county has invested approximately $22 million in recent years to construct this new leachate treatment system that should be fully operational later this year. Funding came from a variety of state, federal and local sources.
The new system will prevent the release of leachate contamination to the environment through the use of treatment and settling ponds, reverse osmosis, advanced oxidation, media filtration, activated carbon, ion exchange and a 90-acre spray irrigation field.
As an example of this system’s innovation, you may recall headlines from a little more than a year ago when the county added a 10-acre cell at the landfill that included a geothermal liner. Garbage produces heat as it decomposes, and the liner will capture and transfer that naturally occurring heat to heat the new leachate treatment facility.
The county’s landfill historically has served a 6,300 square mile region – all of our vast county outside the Resource Renew boundary. By summer, it will greatly expand operations, handling solid waste from Resource Renew (WLSSD), as well as Koochiching, Lake, Cook and Carlton Counties as per the approved Minesota Pollution Control Agency’s Regional Plan. Increased revenue from this service expansion enables us to reduce tipping fees for haulers within the traditional St. Louis County Solid Waste District by $18/ton, which should result in lower costs for customers.
Meanwhile, the county is also making plans to address another critical landfill issue. That is, what to do with contaminated leachate leaking from the dozens of abandoned dumps dotting our region.
Our top legislative bonding request for 2026 is again for funding to help develop an integrated solid waste management campus in Canyon. The campus would serve the entire seven-county region of northeastern Minnesota. It would be large enough to accept leachate from active landfills, as well as the waste and leachate from closed landfills. It would also extend the life of the existing Virginia landfill.
The Canyon campus would use the same technology as is being developed in Virginia. The plan is to include a material recovery facility, landfill, leachate treatment and management system with lined collection holding ponds, and on-site spray irrigation fields. All this will ensure proper management and treatment of leachate to prevent contamination of groundwater and surface water resources for generations.
The site is centrally located between the Iron Range and Duluth and its neighboring communities. This will result in shorter distances for haulers and thus reduced costs to pass on to customers, not to mention reduced greenhouse gas emissions as trucks travel fewer miles.
So, it turns out trash can be interesting after all. We know people in this region value our abundant natural resources and want them protected. Responsible management of solid waste and preventing dangerous impacts is a big part of protecting our environment.
Dana Kazel is St. Louis County’s Communications Manager.
