Portage Landfill Soil Cap Placement
LOCATION: Portage County, Ravenna, Ohio
CLIENT: Ohio Environmental Protection Agency
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
CTI successfully competitively bid and won a design-build contract for a 30-acre orphaned landfill remediation project in northeast Ohio. CTI was tasked with the challenge of providing an acceptable design to the Ohio EPA for repairing extensive storm water damage, providing a properly constructed landfill soil cap, designing and constructing engineered storm water controls and addressing hydrostatic leachate outbreaks. In addition to a fixed monetary budget and completion date milestone, several other contract constraints influenced both the design and execution of this landfill closure project.
The project included engineering design and construction of a low hydraulic conductivity soil cover with surface water and leachate management controls. Construction included 500 tons of non-hazardous waste and debris relocation, over 80,000 CY of cut and fill subgrade earthwork, and over 100,000 CY of imported cohesive soil placement.
CTI landfill engineers and experienced constructors collaborated on and considered several alternatives for remediating the environmental concerns at the Closed Portage Landfill. The final design included remediation features including a short term phytoremediation (wetland plantings to absorb and process leachate), a 12-inch to 18-inch thickness cap of cohesive soil to create a low-permeability barrier between precipitation and the waste mass and a finished topography designed to transport surface storm water towards existing controlled discharge points around the perimeter of the site.
Project Scope:
- Earthwork Construction
- Construction Management
- Construction Quality Control (CQC)
- Geotechnical Testing
- Excellent Construction Safety Record
- Clearing, Grubbing and Stripping
- Borrow Pit Development and Excavation
- Soil Material Handling and Hauling
- Soil Compaction
- Stockpile Management
- Gravel Surfacing
- Establishment of Turf
CTI’s in-house heavy equipment operators coordinated daily transport of clay borrow soils with the daily operations of a functioning sand and gravel mine adjacent to the landfill property. The operators were trained and certified under Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) regulations to meet guidelines for transporting soils through an active mining operation. Over 1,500 tons of ODOT Type D rip-rap was placed at engineered let-down discharge points with an underlayment of approximately 24,000 SF of geotextile fabric. Over 14,000 SF of erosion control matting was installed along drainage swales and diversion berms of the final soil cover surface. Despite several weather related challenges, the project was completed safely with over 3,000 field labor hours and within the imposed construction schedule of 100 calendar days.