Mallard Lake Landfill is a solid waste

landfill A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...

DuPage County, Illinois DuPage County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, and one of the collar counties of the Chicago metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the population was 932,877, making it Illinois' second-most populous county. Its county seat is ...

, west of Mallard Lake. In 1974, the DuPage County Forest Preserve District established a solid waste

west of the lake. The landfill began operation March 4, 1975 and the last load of waste arrived March 13, 1999. The landfill occupies and rises to MSL making it the highest point in DuPage County. In 1994, the district contracted with

Browning-Ferris Industries Browning-Ferris Industries was a North American waste management company that was bought out in 1999. History BFI was founded in Houston, Texas. The company was initially known as American Refuse Systems, and it opened its first landfill in 1968 ...

(BFI) for

landfill gas Landfill gas is a mix of different gases created by the action of microorganisms within a landfill as they decompose organic waste, including for example, food waste and paper waste. Landfill gas is approximately forty to sixty percent methane, ...

extraction rights and electricity production with operations beginning November 1997. The district received royalties from the landfill gas of $71,276 in 2006 and $145,973 in 2005. On April 20, 2006, Tyanna and Jeff Cannata of

West Chicago West Chicago is a city in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. The population was 27,086 at the 2010 census. It was formerly named Junction and later Turner, after its founder, John B. Turner, president of the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad ...

, filed a class action lawsuit against the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, the owner of the Mallard Lake landfill and

(BFI), operator of the landfill, claiming that the landfill was the source of a

carcinogen A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive substan ...

ic contaminant,

vinyl chloride Vinyl chloride is an organochloride with the formula H2C=CHCl. It is also called vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) or chloroethene. This colorless compound is an important industrial chemical chiefly used to produce the polymer polyvinyl chloride (PVC ...

, found in the well water in Carol Stream, Hanover Park, Bartlett, and Wayne Township. The lawsuit was given class action status on behalf of 150 residents on October 11, 2006. In July 2006, the

Illinois Environmental Protection Agency The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Illinois EPA) of the state of Illinois is the primary body concerned with the protection of the environment for the state. The Illinois EPA's mission is "to safeguard environmental quality, consistent ...

stated that many years of groundwater testing surrounding the landfill indicated no evidence of contamination and that during recent testing, no

volatile organic compound Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are organic compounds that have a high vapour pressure at room temperature. High vapor pressure correlates with a low boiling point, which relates to the number of the sample's molecules in the surrounding air, a ...

contamination was found in about 103 down gradient private wells. Joe Benedict, environmental services manager for DuPage County Forest Preserve District reported that, based on the EPA results, there was no contamination. The DuPage County Health Department also tested 87 wells and found no vinyl chloride contamination. In October 2007, methane gas was found in probes installed around the boundaries of the Mallard Lake Landfill in DuPage County, Illinois.

Gallery

References

External links

Mallard Lake Landfill Site
EPA
Mallard Lake Landfill EPA Profile
{{coord, 41.9525000, -88.1442000, display=title Environment of Illinois Geography of DuPage County, Illinois Landfills in the United States Hanover Park, Illinois