Tennessee approves 40-acre landfill expansion

The Rhea County Landfill in Dayton, Tennessee, will undergo an expansion to extend the facility’s life by more than 30 years while also reducing odor and better-managing methane gas emissions, reports the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

County Executive Jim Vincent tells the newspaper that the county originally bought 200 acres, with only 38 acres permitted for the landfill.

“We’re about two years—at the max—from capping it off,” he says. The current permitted 38 acres will be closed after the new portion opens.

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation issued a permit on Dec. 28, 2023, authorizing the 40-acre expansion of the property. Vincent tells the Free Press he worked with the department for about a year to receive the permit.

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“What that does is it gives us another entirely new landfill, that has a life expectancy—depending on how much outside waste I let come in—of 35 to 40 years, so it puts us in wonderful shape,” he says. “The financial drain on counties that do not have landfills is really harming them financially.”

County officials say surrounding counties can benefit from the expansion, too. The landfill’s out-of-county customers include Bledsoe, Cumberland, Hamilton and Roane counties.

The Free Press reports that there were only 57 active landfills in Tennessee two years ago. That figure has dropped to about 30 as some county landfills reached capacity or ran out of land space for expansion, Vincent says.

“Several of those are scheduled to go offline this year and next,” he tells the Free Press. “It's getting to be a real problem.”

Rhea County’s landfill is operated under a third-party contract with Capital Waste Services, based in Chattanooga. Costs of the newly permitted expansion will be incurred by the company under the current contract.