A CAP ON 80 YEARS OF WILD WASTE By Carrie Bell, Teton County ISWR
Teton County’s Little Horsethief Canyon serves as a reminder that landfilling is an accepted practice but not a permanent solution. Landfilling operations on this site at the southern end of Teton County, Wyoming began in the late 1940s. In those days, no one kept records of what they threw away or gave much thought to what would leak out or how it would impact the ground underneath. The characteristics of the untamed, wild west held true in waste management well into the latter half of the twentieth century. Personal accounts of how trash was handled sounded something like, “you would drive up, find whatever hole was available that day, and throw your trash in.” Any information about what was underground in these “cowboy” landfills came from limited aerial photographs, GIS mapping, and personal accounts. Garbage from Jackson Hole was deposited at Little Horsethief until 1989, when Teton County began transferring its trash to more modern, lined landfills in neighboring communities and states.
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In 2009, as part of Wyoming’s landfill remediation program, Teton County began to plan for the official closure and capping of the Little Horsethief Canyon site, as well as the ongoing monitoring and remediation of groundwater contamination from the landfill leachate. Teton County’s Integrated Solid Waste and Recycling department (ISWR) faced the difficult questions of how much waste was in the landfill? How deeply was it buried? And how could the groundwater be protected going forward? ISWR secured local SPET funding and a Wyoming State Loan and Investment Board (SLIB) grant to assist with the costs of the planned remediation. With initial funding secured, work began to “tame the wild waste!” Early tasks included the excavation of an anticipated 300,000 cubic yards of waste, or enough to fill 40 Goodyear blimps. When it was discovered that removing and hauling this tonnage to the landfill in Bonneville County, Idaho would require a total of 1,043,000 miles, 11 years, and $25,000,000, an alternative plan was hatched.
