A 65-acre landfill where residents and businesses dumped their garbage for 30 years is moving closer to becoming one of the state's largest urban nature parks.
The landfill was closed earlier this year due to federal environmental regulations and the fact it was nearing capacity with the accumulation of 4 million tons of waste.Efforts to cap the landfill began in early June and are expected to be complete this fall. The plan is to turn the landfill into a park, featuring wildlife habitat, pedestrian and bicycle trails and volleyball courts.
There already is an existing three-acre wetland on the south end of the landfill.
"We have deer back here and turtles and lots of birds," landfill manager Karlene Linford said.
A warehouse at the landfill's entrance has served as a temporary transfer station where the county's garbage, averaging 700 tons per day, is still collected, compacted, and trucked to a nearby rail terminal. From there it is loaded onto rail cars and shipped nightly to a 2,400-acre commercial landfill in Carbon County.
A permanent transfer station is expected to be located at Wall Avenue and 31st Street sometime next year.
Jesse Glidden, Weber County's environmental engineer, is overseeing work to cap the landfill, which the Environmental Protection Agency requires once a dump is closed.