What will potential new landfill do with its leachate?
Leachate is an inevitable byproduct of all landfills. The current landfill at Oneida pumps several thousand gallons of it to the sewer plant per day, which likely won't be an option for a new landfill
ONEIDA | Most informed observers believe that stopping a proposed second landfill at Bear Creek might be an uphill battle for local governments. Although Scott County and the towns of Oneida, Winfield and even Huntsville continue to formulate their response to the landfill proposal, that assumption stems mostly from a 1992 court ruling involving the property where the landfill has been proposed.
However, it appears that one potential snag that could be looming for a new landfill at Bear Creek is what will become of the leachate the landfill produces.
Volunteer Regional Landfill, the existing landfill at Bear Creek, disposes of some of its leachate through the Town of Oneida’s wastewater treatment plant. But it appears that a new landfill might produce more leachate than the town’s sewer system can handle, and it isn’t clear that other sewer utilities in the area have an appetite for handling the leachate.
Landfill leachate is the liquid that forms as trash in the landfill breaks down and water filters through it. As the water from rainfall and other sources moves through the decomposing trash, it picks up a variety of contaminants, which have the potential to pollute soil and the water system.
In the modern era, state and federal laws heavily govern how landfills are constructed and maintained, requiring the use of liners and leachate collection systems that substantially drive up the cost of landfills but are designed to prevent leachate from contaminating the water table and nearby streams.
Those same laws require that the leachate that is captured by those collection systems be treated to remove contaminants before being discharged — just the same way that wastewater from any home or business is treated at a wastewater treatment plant.
In many cases, leachate is pumped or transported from the landfill to a municipal wastewater treatment plant — and that is the case at Volunteer Regional Landfill, which pays the Town of Oneida to treat some of its leachate. The Oneida Water & Wastewater Department serves most of northern Scott County, including the Bear Creek area where the landfill is located.
The average flow of leachate from the landfill into the town’s sewer system is three gallons per minute. Oneida Water & Wastewater charts the flow and can adjust how much flow is allowed.
“If it starts to overload our system, we can restrict it,” Oneida Water & Wastewater Manager Steve Owens said. “We’ve done that in the past. We aren’t going to let it put us in violation of our permit.”
So what happens if a second landfill opens at Bear Creek and needs to pump its leachate into the town’s sewer system?
“There is a limited amount of leachate that we can process,” Oneida Mayor Lori Phillips-Jones said last week. She added that it’s difficult to say how much leachate a new landfill would ask the town to process because the landfill has not yet been constructed. The TN Dept. of Environment & Conservation permitted 24 acres of the property for a landfill in 2010. However, the developers are planning a rail transfer station adjacent to the landfill, which would point to plans for a much larger landfill. While the developers have applied with TDEC for a permit to construct the transfer station, a landfill permit application has not yet been filed with the state agency.
Oneida’s wastewater treatment plant would not be the only option for the landfill. It would also have the option of trucking the leachate off-site to a treatment plant elsewhere. The question is where that would be.
The only other wastewater treatment plant in Scott County is owned by the Town of Huntsville. The town’s mayor, Dennis Jeffers, said that the landfill developers have not reached out to him about accepting leachate, but was blunt in what his response would be:
“We don’t want their garbage or their leachate,” Jeffers said. “Leachate is highly corrosive, and it can turn a sewer plant upside down in a hurry. The Town of Huntsville doesn’t want it.”
A lack of nearby treatment options for leachate might only be a minor obstacle for a new landfill. Landfills have a number of options for treating leachate besides pumping it to a municipal wastewater treatment plant.
However, TDEC does require landfill planners to account for how they intend to dispose of leachate. Public records show that in 2010, prior to permitting the 24-acre Roberta Phase II landfill at Bear Creek, TDEC was skeptical that Oneida Water & Wastewater could handle the amount of leachate estimated to be produced by the landfill — 71,000 gallons over a 30-day period — and required Roberta Phase II to identify another option for disposing of its leachate.
Based on the average of three gallons per minute, the Oneida sewer plant is currently treating around 130,000 gallons of leachate from Volunteer Regional every month.
Some landfills in the U.S. have an on-site leachate treatment plant that allows contaminants to be removed and the water safely discharged. That requires significant additional cost upfront that is often considered prohibitive for smaller landfill operators. There are other methods, such as bioreactors, which recirculate leachate within the landfill, which increases the rate at which waste decays in the landfill. Not all states allow bioreactors but Tennessee does in some instances. The much-discussed Middle Point Landfill near Murfreesboro, which is creating a headache for Middle Tennessee planners as it nears capacity, utilizes bioreactor technology.
There are leachate evaporators, such as one utilized by Volunteer Regional Landfill. The existing landfill’s evaporator is powered by natural gas and, according to TDEC documents, can take as much as 30,000 gallons of leachate per day.
There are also more natural methods, such as engineered wetlands and trees that consume leachate.
Leachate is one of the biggest thorns in the side of landfill developers — not only in how to dispose of it, but in safely containing it. Public records from TDEC show that Volunteer Regional Landfill self-reported a leachate leak on Feb. 18, 2025. A letter from TDEC six days later stated that an inspection by the agency had revealed that leachate was leaking from a collection reservoir due to a liner failure. TDEC described the volume of leachate leaking from the reservoir as “low flow,” and noted that the landfill had installed a temporary catch basin.
TDEC does not require privately-owned landfills to report leachate spills to local governments, despite the environmental hazards such leaks could pose. It does not appear that the February 2025 leak was reported to either Scott County or the Town of Oneida — though it also does not appear that the leak penetrated the exterior of the landfill.
Meanwhile, local governments continue to mount a resistance to the proposed new landfill. Scott County Commission acted last month to opt-in to the Jackson Law, which gives county and municipal governments a say in the approval process for privately-owned landfills. The Town of Winfield has begun the process of establishing overlay zoning restrictions that would prohibit a landfill or transfer station within one-half mile of a residence or one mile of a school. The Town of Oneida is set to record its first vote on a similar overlay zoning ordinance when it meets later this week. And the Town of Huntsville last week approved its participation in a fledgling coalition of local governments that will be intended to study ways to oppose the landfill. It appears that the governments of Oneida, Winfield, Scott County and McCreary County will consider joining that coalition. Scott County Commission is set to vote on joining the coalition when it meets in regular session on June 30.