Fiscal Note
No Appropriation Required.
Title
Amending Section 35.025 of the Madison General Ordinance to clarify the purposes of the Landfill Remediation Charge.
Body
DRAFTER'S ANALYSIS: The City currently owns and operates six closed landfills. As part of our continuing duties as the owners of these facilities, the City must ensure that the landfills are properly maintained and cared for to protect against explosions, environmental contamination, or other threats to the public health, safety and welfare. As part of our ongoing duties, the City maintains the landfill cap, the gas collection and gas monitoring system, the leachate collection system, and monitoring wells around the facility. This ensures that the sewage from the closed landfills continues to drain from the facilities to the MMSD treatment facility and that storm water and surface water discharges from the facility are not negatively impacted. The importance of remediating the closed landfills became apparent when the Greentree landfill caused an explosion in 1983. The City established the Landfill Remediation Charge in 1992 as a means to finance the City’s remediation efforts of its closed landfills (MGO Sec. 35.025 Cr. by Ord. 10,551, 12-11-92). This charge is a sewerage charge that is collected by the Madison Sewer Utility, with the rate being set annually based upon the City’s costs to maintain the landfills. The charge raised approximately $456,000 in revenue in 2017, an amount that is still short of the City’s total costs to oversee the closed landfills (approximately $721,000 in 2017).
The Madison Water Utility currently permits private wells within the City under Section 13.21, MGO. Wells that do not meet State law standards (i.e., they are not constructed or maintained properly, or they contain unsafe water) must be abandoned under State and local laws and regulations. Improperly abandoned private wells can provide a direct pathway for contaminated surface water and storm wate...
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