John Roosa, Administrator, Boone County Landfill and Boone County Recycling, November 4, 2026

And a good morning. I'm happy to be joined by the legendary John Rosa landfill administrator recycling coordinator for Boone County. Good morning. How are you? Oh, I'm dry above ground. You know, I'm above the levels of the landfill. Oh man. Yeah. And lots of rain and the rain just keeps right on going. I'm sitting there looking back at what was it? 5.7 inches in October. At least you had some stretches where it was a little dry. Yeah. A lot, but a little. A little more productive month for our construction projects in October, but over, you know, the previous two months prior to that, I mean. Yeah, slowly getting there, but just lots of challenges. Lots of challenges. The last time when we met and we visited, you were getting ready to go to the supervisors again with proposal on extending for the force main project and Scott Cruz with you. And when he said there were five working days in September, going, yeah, not real productive there. No. And again, people don't understand. They think, well, you know, you got the contractor, you got the subcontractor, everybody's there ready to go. You know, those subcontractors can go elsewhere and work. Yeah. And they do. And then then they got to all come back and, you know. And then the general contractors kind of stuck in the middle to, well, we'd like to get progress done, but our subs aren't available. And here we are. So yeah, it's quite the situation of dealing with all the variables and the changes that people involve the different companies, the general contractors, the subs. Yeah, it's a challenge. And then we still have a regular operation going on, of course, too. You know, we're still taking garbage. It doesn't slow down. And we've been taking Ames and Story County waste pretty much the entire month of October. And we're currently taking them last yesterday, today and tomorrow. So, you know, heavy flow of traffic and all kinds of mud out there for them to to spin around in and hopefully not get stuck. And then it's clean the road off when we're done too, because of all the mud being dragged onto the road. There's lots of things. Just keep forging. So I didn't want to ask, obviously, yeah, Forest Main Project, Supervisor did extend, go with about two week extension. And they seem to, when people are here and they have the ability to go, we're making some progress. And it should have been done by now, theoretically, but that was that was before Mother Nature showed up. Yes. So they had the extension permitting kind of throw that weather permitting. Yeah. Yeah, I think the deadline was initially was November 20. And we add on a couple of weeks to allow that to be done. They asked for a month in working with WHKS, they're like, seems reasonable to do two, you know, and that's not a hard, that's not yet, you know, if there's if there's more, you know, and this, this, these rains that's going on, no, it's not helping the cause either. But they're getting close. I know there's, you know, there, there's things, there was some last boring of about 1000 feet, which seems like a lot. But, you know, it was 9000 feet, I believe is what they had to bore for the whole project. So, you know, a smaller amount, one stretch left. And then there were some other things, of course, there's electric to hook up, there's, you know, other tasks involved, but they're getting there on the force main. And hopefully that extension is adequate for them to get it done. If the weather would cooperate, I think we would be in a much better position for that to happen. I think and you talked about we did talk about it last time you told me, and I've used your numbers. Because early on, you said, or at that point in time, a couple of weeks ago, it was like 3.4 million gallons of leachate had been pumped this year, as compared to a regular season of 1.2. Yeah. Yeah. So obviously that number is still up there and growing. Yep. And people need to remember this is additional cost over and above a project. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I know the supervisors ask you about that. Oh, that's for sure. Yeah, it was comparatively, this is, you know, we're probably pushing four times out that amount, the 1.2 million, you know, we've got to be in the 4 million area right now for the year. So much of it's been contracted to haul out to which is expensive. But even our own, you know, if we do our own, there's still certain their own expenses. It's not like that's free. We still have employees and we have fuel and depreciation and truck wear and tear and a lot of things to consider in the process. But that's why with the force main, you know, there'll be electricity cost in the future. That's about it just to run the pumps. But it'll be significantly less of an expense to send that to our Boone water treatment plant wastewater treatment plant for treatment. And it'll be so much nicer, you know, and if had this been done years ago, we'd be reaping the benefits. But we're getting it now, we'll be able to use it for the life of the landfill, which probably is 30 some years down the road that we would be be available. And then another 30 years beyond that to for maintaining and meeting our regulations with the DNR to during our closure, post closure time. So yeah, I just can't wait for these projects to be done. But yeah, it's a huge expense to the landfill for leachate. It's one of them, you just think about garbage, but there's also this other management of my product that you have to take care. Yes. Yeah. And the other part in the other contract or the other capital project going on is the new cell or the last cell new and last. Well, anyway, nine are nine are yep. Yeah. So anyway, but part of that they got to put in the piping again to drain leachate out of there. But when it's underwater, that's a little hard to do. And you got to get the liner down and you got to have that done and you got to have that covered all of that before the weather ends up up. Taking being impossible taking it away. Yes. Yeah, construction season. So yeah, challenges that they are looking at potentially extending to the end of the year. Yeah, their deadline for this first division of the construction was November 7th, you know, coming up quick, obviously not going to make that. So looking at how much they've lost in an opportune time to work back in August and September, and requesting an additional time, which to meet some of those deadlines anyway, to get the FML, the plastic liner put down, have that company come in and do that. And then the sand, which we have a crazy amount of sand in this project, because it's covering the old cell as well as the new one. So getting all that completed, and all the trucks that need to come in for that still, and then the time to spread it out onto the liner, and then put down the rain fly, the material over the top to shed the water, so that it does not go into the collection system and can just be diverted to a to the storm water area, which you know, if it lands upon the plastic and doesn't go through the garbage, it can just be diverted away from the leachate collection. So a lot of things have to, you know, align right now, and there's a time crunch with the contractors and when they can do it, and weather permitting, of course, you know, not just the rain, but now we get into the cold and the snow, that other thing that's the other variable. Yeah. And then the opportune time for them to get that all that stuff installed. So it's quite the push here. Everything's kind of bottleneck. And it seems like with the projects and just keep plugging away and hoping that hoping that the weather would cooperate and allow us to get this stuff done. I think the biggest, probably the biggest issue has been just the volume of rain and the amount of leachate that's left you having.