County To Move Forward On Closing Jamestown Landfill

Sonora, CA — With a 5-0 Tuesday vote the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors approved a staff recommendation to continue researching the second of two proposed projects to close the Jamestown Landfill.

According to Rick Mitchell of Geomatrix Consultants, Project Two would be considered a comprehensive landfill closure.

The project would call for the dismantling of the existing surface water drainage system and abandoning the existing landfull gas wells on the top deck of the landfill. Next would be the excavation of the existing clay and possibly stockpiling it for reuse. The next step would be excavating the refuse to create three to one final slopes over the entire landfull scraping a good portion of the existing liner.

Mitchell stated the plan would then call for the construction of a 20 foot high soil buttress on the eastern edge of the landfull and placing the excavated refuse behind the buttress within the landfill footprint.

The final steps would include reconstruction of the cover system either entirely with geosynthetics or with the stockpiled clay. The final step would be the reconstruction of the landfill gas and surface water drainage systems.

Following Mitchell´s presentation, Director of Public Works Peter Rei commented that today´s goal was to obtain a preferred alternative to take to the Water Board and the Waste Board with a request to define any fatal flaws. The next step would be to ask the same question of the construction community. The plan would then be refined and returned to the supervisors.

Chair Mark Thornton then defined Tuesday´s motion as giving direction to the staff recommendation of pursing Project Two, obtaining a definitieve cost and gaining state approval.

Written by Bill Johnson