Polluted Burnsville Landfill Could Cost Taxpayers Millions

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - A WCCO Investigation has found the fight over an old landfill could cost taxpayers millions of dollars to clean up. The former Freeway Landfill sits off I-35W and Black Dog Road in Burnsville, next to the Minnesota River.

It stopped taking trash more than 20 years ago but the landfill still hasn't been cleaned up to meet state standards.

Off a busy stretch of 35W is what's considered the gateway to Burnsville. What looks like a serene 140 acres of land, locked in a fight as messy as the five million cubic yards of trash hiding beneath the soil.

"This is the city's No. 1 priority," city manager Heather Johnston said.

The city is backing plans to one day build homes and businesses at the site.

"Our first focus is protecting the environment and public health," Kirk Koudelka, assistant commissioner for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, said.

State and federal regulators are focused on safety. But WCCO found the biggest player in all this, the property owner, is for the most part silent.

The McGowan family closed Freeway Landfill in 1993 after taking trash for 25 years.

Months later, they opened a transfer station. That business remains today. Trucks drop off waste and load it into larger vehicles to be disposed of elsewhere.

But in boxes of files and folders at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, we found serious concerns about the buried trash: estimates that 20 truckloads of battery casings containing lead were accepted and 448 tons of sweat furnace slag, cancer-causing scrap metal material, was also in the ground.

For years, the state has said Freeway Landfill hasn't met closure requirements. Reports say Freeway failed to follow sampling rules, provided incomplete or inadequate data and didn't test for potentially dangerous materials.

The state says Freeway is now providing quarterly measurements after an Administrative Order was issued in 2012. Parts of that order are still being negotiated three years later.

The MPCA maintains Burnsville residents are safe for now. It's the future it's most worried about.

EPA reports show groundwater contaminants exceed drinking water standards.

The old landfill sits right next to Kraemer quarry. Burnsville and Savage get most of their drinking water from the quarry. The concern is when this quarry closes in 20 years, garbage could seep into the water once the old site is turned into a lake. Experts say it's possible the flow of the water could even change and its pollution could end up in the Minnesota River, which is a little more than a football field away.

Koudelka told WCCO this all could have been cleared up long ago.

"I don't think it's progressed at anyone's speed," Koudelka said. "We would have liked it taken care of earlier."

The year after Freeway Landfill stopped taking trash, Minnesota launched the Closed Landfill Program.

Taxpayers cover the cost of cleaning up old landfills. More than 100 properties opted in. Only four haven't, including Freeway. And it's 50 times larger than those other holdouts.

"It's not closed to a level that will allow development, and that's the issue," Johnston, the Burnsville city manager, said.

Years from now, Burnsville envisions a golf course, medical campus and corporate offices on the site.

The city and state said Freeway's owner already considers the landfill properly closed. They're negotiating the future of Michael McGowan's current trash business on the site.

"They are working with the city, state and county to see the best use of the land," McGowan told WCCO.

The EPA is now giving the McGowans until August 30 to join the state's landfill program. Otherwise, the agency will step in and clean it up.  The EPA can then sue area residents and businesses to cover the cost. That could be up to $60 million.