In 2010, the City of Big Spring and Parkhill began looking for a new municipal solid waste landfill site. The new site needed to be of sufficient size to provide waste disposal capacity for generations, to include areas for managing landfill generated leachate, and to provide an area for citizens to drop off waste away from the landfill work face safely.
Parkhill’s Solid Waste engineers identified issues such as floodplains, proximity to airports, fault zones, groundwater issues, and more. Engineers recommended a site, and the detailed 3 1/2-year permitting process began. Coordination with governmental agencies was critical for the team’s success in obtaining this permit. In addition to working with Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the team also coordinated with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Texas Historical Commission, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and local government officials throughout the project.
Big Sandy Draw Municipal Solid Waste Landfill employees operate a state-of-the-art scale house that has both inbound and outbound scales. The scales are equipped with a scanner, which emits a radio wave that senses a unique Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag on the vehicle. As the vehicle stops on the scale, the total vehicle weight is recorded, and the tare weight is deducted to give the total number of tons of waste the vehicle is carrying.
Developing a complex stormwater drainage design required re-routing existing onsite drainage patterns from diagonally over the site to perimeter channels that outfall into detention basins to mitigate developed peak flow rates and help control potential flooding and soil erosion problems downstream.
Parkhill engaged various stakeholders and the community throughout the process. Social and economic considerations included avoiding placing the site in depressed areas of the community. Engineers made several presentations at City Council meetings to clearly describe any issues and what the proposed solutions were, such as (a) obtaining appropriate land, (b) securing a TCEQ construction and operating permit, and (c) developing engineering plans and specifications for bidding and actual construction of the facility.
The city wanted Parkhill to recommend safety options employed at the landfill. The result was a separate area for Big Spring and Howard County residents to dispose of waste safely without driving onto the landfill work face. A drop-off area was designed where a resident can drive onto a paved ramp and then place waste into one of several roll-off containers placed at the lower side of the ramp.
The new maintenance building employs overhead cranes to enable on-site equipment maintenance.
The project helps reduce operational costs, which in turn lessens residents’ monthly fees.
“If we had not been able to get this facility in place, we would literally hve had to truck solid waste a minimum of 40 miles to another facility.” – Big Spring Mayor Shannon Thomason
Completing the Big Sandy Draw MSW Landfill provides an uninterrupted solid waste solution to Big Spring and Howard County residents for up to 106 years. As time goes by and more and more communities adopt recycling as another component of their solid waste management solution, there is ample space available to allow those facilities to be constructed and operated on-site.