Alternative Landfill Cover Project Profiles:
Capillary Barrier ET Cover at Gaffey Street Sanitary Landfill, CA
Capillary Barrier ET Cover at Gaffey Street Sanitary Landfill, CA
Last Updated: October 7, 2003
Site Information
Site Name, Location:
Gaffey Street Sanitary Landfill, Wilmington, CA USA
(EPA Region 9)
Site Type:
MSW landfill
Superfund Site:
No
Federal Facility:
No
Bottom liner:
No
Climate:
Semi-arid climate with relatively mild temperatures (cool moist winters and warm dry summers). Most precipitation falls between November and March.
Annual Precipitation:
13 in
Project Information
Project Name:
Capillary Barrier ET Cover at Gaffey Street Sanitary Landfill, CA
Project Scale:
Full scale
Demonstration Program:
Not a demonstration project
Project Status:
Construction
Project Description/ Purpose:
The primary objective of this project was to design an irrigated capillary barrier ET cover that would be equal or superior to a conventional clay cover. The City of Los Angeles plans to develop this landfill as a recreation park. The final closure must conform to prescriptive final cover criteria or satisfy criteria for an engineered alternative to a prescriptive final cover.
Regulatory Status:
Conditionally approved
Monitoring System:
Soil moisture monitoring will be conducted with neutron probes at 2 locations and varying depths.
Cover Information
Cover Type:
Capillary Barrier Evapotranspiration
Design of Cover:
From the surface downward: 1 foot of vegetated soil, 3 feet of silty sandy soil, an 8 oz/yd2 filter geotextile, 0.5 foot of drainage gravel, and an 8 oz/yd2 filter geotextile.
Types of Vegetation:
Shallow-rooted turf grass
Drainage Layer:
No
Biointrusion Layer:
No
Gas Collection Layer:
No
Water Balance Model:
UNSAT-H
Modeling Results:
Ten years with most precipitation (1977-1986) were used for the simulation. Modeling results indicated that cumulative percolation through the capillary barrier evapotranspiration cover (under vegetated and irrigated conditions) was less than 3 cm or 0.2% of the total precipitation plus irrigation. For the conventional clay cover (under vegetated and non-irrigated conditions), cumulative percolation was 79 cm or 17.5% of total precipitation.
Designer Name:
GeoSyntec Consultants
Performance Data Available:
No
Maintenance Activities:
Smart irrigation system will be installed to distribute 0.15 inches of precipitation on non-rain days from March through November.
Comments:
Non-vegetated areas, such as tennis courts and parking lots, will have a low-permeability barrier (asphaltic concrete pavement underlain with a geotextile) to limit percolation. Based on initial water balance analyses, an irrigated, monolithic ET cover with turf grass would allow more infiltration than a non-irrigated prescriptive final cover with native species. Therefore, because of the year-round irrigation of the turf grass, a capillary barrier ET cover design was selected to achieve regulatory compliance.
Point(s) of Contact
Primary Contact
Role in Project:
Organization:
City of Los Angeles, Bureau of Sanitation
Name:
Kelly Gharios, Assistant Division Manager
Address:
419 South Spring Street, Suite 800, Los Angeles, CA 90013
Kavazanjian, Edward, Jr. 2001. Design and Performance of Evapotranspirative Cover Systems for Arid Region Landfills. 36th Annual Western States Engineering Geology and Geotechnical Engineering Symposium, 28-30 March 2001, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada. Pages 11-26.
Email from Edward Kavazanjian, GeoSyntec Consultants, to Kelly Madalinski, EPA. July 28, 2003.
Evans, T.M., Meyers, D.K., Gharios, K.M., Hadj-Hamou, T., and E. Kavazanjian, Jr. 2000. The Use of Capillary Barrier Final Cover for Reclamation of a Closed Municipal Solid Waste Landfill. Third Annual Arid Climate Symposium, Solid Waste Association of North America, New Mexico Chapter, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 12-14 April.
