The Jefferson City Council approved a special exception permit that would provide an additional 3.5 million cubic yards of airspace to the Jefferson City Landfill. The Jefferson City Landfill receives roughly 600 tons of waste every day. At that rate, the current landfill has only a few years left before it reaches its air-space capacity.
Craig Abbott, an environmental manager with Republic Services who operates the landfill, expands on what is airspace in relation to a landfill. “Our permit is for roughly 9.5 million cubic yards of airspace. So, if you look at it like a balloon, everything within that balloon is the airspace that’s permitted, you can’t go above it, you can’t go outside of that balloon. So, it’s permitted for 9.5 million cubic yards. We had about 1.5 million cubic yards left.”
He says after receiving the approval of the city council, a five-year permitting process will begin, with the Department of Natural Resources to determine if the site is fit for a landfill. “We have to prove to the department and to the state of Missouri that the geology that were wanting to use the land and the subsurface geology is adequate and meets the required regulations of state law.”