Highest point in Sussex built on millions of tons of garbage

Once upon a time they were called trash pits. Then they were called dumps. Then dumps gave way to landfills.

They’re still called landfills - a more politically correct term - but in Sussex County, the repository for all the county’s trash-waste-garbage is technically known as the Southern Solid Waste Management Center. Call it what you will, but it’s still located at 28560 Landfill Lane, a few miles southwest of Georgetown on Route 20 at Jones Crossroads.

And if you want to know about waste management centers in Delaware as the 21st century gains full traction, Mike Parkowski and Jim Vescovi are your guys. I met with them recently for a tour of the Sussex facility. Parkowski is chief of Business and Governmental Services for the Delaware Solid Waste Authority, which is responsible for all waste disposal and recycling in Delaware. Vescovi, a professional engineer, is facility manager for Jones Crossroads.
They can tell you, for example, that the Jones Crossroads site is situated on 572 acres.

Here are a few more facts and figures the men provided:

An average of 550 vehicles come to the facility each day to drop off loads of waste and recyclable materials.

“Our mission is to manage material economically, reasonably and responsibly,” said Parkowski. Recyclable materials include yard waste, electronics, tires, plastics, cardboard and paper, glass, and used motor oil. Six days a week they come, from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed only on Sundays. (Electronics are collected most Mondays, but call in advance at 302-875-3448 just to make sure.) “And yes, we do actually recycle recyclable materials,” said Parkowski. “Contrary to what people think, we don’t just throw them in with all of the other garbage.”

In its first 34 years, the Jones Crossroads facility has taken in 6,199,420 tons of waste/garbage/trash. Annual tonnage grew every year from the first 100,000 in 1985, up until 2006 when the facility took in 277,315 tons. Then, with the economic crash that started in 2007, annual tonnage declined steadily until 2012 when it bottomed out at 169,545 tons. It’s been climbing again ever since, reaching 302,261 tons in 2018. That includes 27,000 tons of waste removed as part of a cleanup of the Jackson pit near Five Points. “We lost 30 percent of our annual tonnage in the economic downturn,” said Parkowski. “We contract and expand with the economy.”

In 2010, the facility clocked 53,000 pickup trucks that came to drop off materials. That’s a pretty steady number each year.

There are more than 54 places around the landfill operation where a third-party contractor samples surface water and groundwater - weekly, monthly and annually - under the direction of two environmental scientists hired by DSWA to monitor the contract. Their job is to to ensure that the garbage is staying put, not polluting the groundwater beneath the site, not contaminating subsurface soils, and only minimally impacting the air and grounds around the site. “We get very few complaints,” said Vescovi.

A 40-foot-tall litter fence in areas being actively worked keeps trash from blowing off the site. Of course there’s the odor of fresh garbage where deliveries are dumped, but the last activity completed after the landfill closes each day - much to the dismay of the ever-present gulls - is the pushing by big dozers of a two-foot-thick covering of dirt over that day’s tonnage.

Delaware is the only state in the nation that has a statewide solid waste authority handling all of the state’s trash. “We take care of all our own waste,” said Vescovi. “We don’t ship any out, and we don’t take any in from out-of-state.” The Delaware Solid Waste Authority also operates waste management facilities at Sandtown in Kent County and Cherry Point in New Castle.

A two-foot clay liner is installed beneath each cell along with a double composite impermeable geotextile membrane. N.C. Vasuki, DSWA director at the time, pioneered the system in Delaware - and the nation - in 1984. “We install two times the liner that law requires,” said Parkowski. “We have a relatively high water table on Delmarva, and we want to be extra cautious.” Vescovi said DSWA has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to waste management. “We haven’t had to do a whole lot of catching up.”

When a cell is filling, said Vescovi, capping begins almost immediately, from the bottom and up the sloping sides. The capping includes two feet of cover dirt, three layers of impermeable geotextile gridwork that collects gas and liquids, 18 more inches of dirt, and then six inches of topsoil for planted grasses and natural cover seeded by nature.

At 204 feet tall and growing, cell number four - the largest so far at the facility - is nearing its 220-foot permitted height. Once there, its sloping sides already capped and vegetated, the cell will be topped off with the same capping. “It’s the highest landmass on the coastal plain of Delmarva,” said Vescovi.

A system of perforated PVC pipes in the cells, networked with the geotextile grids, collects methane gas generated, after about two years, by deteriorating garbage. A vacuum pump system draws out the gas, which fires a generating station to power the facility. “It’s about break-even for us,” said Parkowski. “It costs more in Sussex to generate clean, renewable green energy. Because of all the drywall construction debris, the gas has to be filtered through a medium to remove hydrogen sulfide generated by deteriorating drywall material. We’re the only landfill in Delaware that has to do that because there’s so much new construction in Sussex.”

Vescovi oversees a staff of 18 that manages all of the material that comes into the facility. “They take great pride in what they do,” he said. “They’re very conscientious.” He said the women and men in the gatehouse where materials come in each day never cease to amaze him. “They’re our weighmasters, the first contact our customers have with us. They determine what kind of waste there is, where it’s supposed to go, any environmental considerations. They set the tone for the whole place - make sure nothing’s coming in from out of state. They gather data and dollars. It’s STEM work and politics. This is a complex place, and they keep tabs on all of it.”

“In addition to being a waste management facility, electricity-generating operation, and the hub for Sussex County’s recycling operations, we’re also like a great big wildlife preserve,” said Vescovi. “All fenced, we have deer that make their way in, ducks and geese, turkeys and herons. Lots of seagulls on the open trash dumped every day, buzzards, and bald eagles. The most eagles I ever counted at one time was 13.”

From atop the 200-foot-tall mound called cell four, Vescovi often finds himself looking down on soaring eagles and low-flying Vs of geese.

The biggest change he’s seen over his 18 years at Jones Crossroads is the focus on recycling and the diversion of trash. “It’s societal change. If we make it convenient and the right thing to do, people will. Eventually we will become more of a recycling hub for Sussex than a landfill. Ultimately we will become a green space with trails over these vegetation-covered mounds,” said Vescovi. “But we’ll still have to maintain and monitor it all. And making that transition will take a long time.”

Based on current projections, he said, there’s room for 40 more years of waste disposal at Jones Crossroads. Rough math? About 10 million more tons.

Pit, dump, landfill, waste management. Whatever you call it, that’s a lot of garbage.