Increasing the developable area around a landfill

New housing for Albertans.

Municipalities can’t grow beyond their defined borders, and the remaining developable land within the municipal borders is generally contaminated or otherwise undesirable. When developing adjacent to a non-operating landfill, Alberta regulates that the minimum setback distance for construction is 300 metres. That’s a lot of wasted land!

Thurber and Associated Engineering teamed up to support an Alberta developer facing a construction challenge near a former landfill. We helped the developer successfully close and remediate the landfill pit, including designing a landfill cover and navigating the regulations. Our services included:

• Support for the application to reduce the required setback from the landfill, support design of an engineered landfill cover, and prepare a landfill closure plan.
• A cost comparison of a standard clay liner cover and an alternative system consisting of a combined geosynthetic liner and clay liner. Following the comparison, the team chose a combined geosynthetic and compacted clay liner.
• Erosion and Sediment control
• Slope stability analysis
• Borrow material assessment
• Surface water drainage
• Landfill gas and groundwater monitoring and management
• Support for the setback variance application
• Quality assurance testing for the landfill cap construction

Our services helped our client obtain the setback variance they required and build much needed houses for Albertans.