NTMWD operates the 121 Regional Disposal Facility landfill designed to protect the environment, control odors, and provide an affordable and effective option for waste disposal. Our landfill meets or exceeds all state and federal waste management regulations.

So, how exactly does a landfill work? Most people think we simply bury the trash and move on, but it’s much more sophisticated than that.

Landfill Design

To ensure landfilled waste does not pollute groundwater and protects the environment, we:

  1. Construct a composite liner system to form a barrier between landfilled waste and the underlying subsurface. The liner system spans the entire bottom of the landfill.
  2. Remove leachate (water that has passed through the waste) captured inside the landfill using a two foot thick soil system that sits on top of the composite liner. We then either recirculate the leachate on the waste or safely dispose of it off-site at a wastewater treatment plant.
  3. Cover the waste each day with at least 6 inches of clean soil to control odors, prevent exposure to air and keep waste away from birds and vermin.
  4. Cap completed landfill with a five-foot thick layer of clean soil, including a layer of vegetation to prevent erosion.

Landfill Monitoring

We monitor subsurface water around the landfill perimeter as well as monitor for the presence of methane gas created by the decomposition of waste. We currently have 216 gas wells throughout the developed sections of the landfill to collect gas produced by the decomposition of solid waste, and another 25 will be installed by the end of February 2020. We teamed up with Morrow Renewables for a gas-to-energy production program that harvests our landfill gas and cleans it to natural gas pipeline quality. Not only does this create a new source of renewable energy, it also generates revenue to help offset operations and maintenance costs for the solid waste disposal system.