Pisgah Landfill Officially Closed

A brief ceremony on May 18 officially closed the Pisgah 84-acre landfill in Charles County, MD. The beginning of the end of the landfill began in 1984 when methane from the site exploded. In 1982, the landfill received a methane-gas collection system and a plastic cap. A flame burns continuously atop a 40-foot tower, the end of the methane collection system.

Tests from monitoring wells show the underground plume of contamination is receding and is on track to retrench to within the landfill site itself, said the county's chief of solid waste.

The county opened the landfill as an unlined facility in 1974. Seepage problems began in the 1980s, which affected the shallow aquifer. The county fully or partly funded the replacing of 23 shallow wells. For the most part, the work involved drilling wells to a deep aquifer. In 1990, the state issued its closure order. The county was unable to comply until it could build its current landfill. The new landfill, lined with geomembrane and special clay, opened in 1994, a month before Pisgah stopped accepting trash.