Fans of the great outdoors intent on spending a quiet day at the Mallard Lake Forest Preserve might be disappointed if a proposal being considered by a DuPage County Forest Preserve District committee wins approval.
That proposal would have 200 dirt-hauling trucks entering the forest preserve via Lawrence Avenue each day to get to the adjacent Mallard Lake landfill. The trucks would dump their loads at the landfill as the county prepares to shut it down.
Added to the mix would be 80 more trucks carrying the product of a separate dredging operation. Meanwhile, 600 garbage-hauling trucks would be entering the landfill via Schick Road as trash operations continue.
“There are some major consequences to weigh,” district Commissioner Pamela Rion (R-Bloomingdale) said during an Environmental Services Committee meeting of the Forest Preserve Commission.
The proposal stems from a request by Lindahl Brothers Inc., which is hauling clay and soil into the landfill. It wants to use the Lawrence Avenue entrance to avoid competing with the heavy stream of trash trucks at the landfill’s main entrance off Schick Road, east of County Farm Road.
Joseph Benedict Jr., the district’s director of environmental services, discussed the proposal during the committee meeting.
“There’s too much truck traffic now” using the main entrance to the landfill, he said. “It’s the only practical alternative we could come up with.”
Benedict, though, said he believes the landfill can be closed within two years regardless of whether the Lawrence Avenue entrance is approved.
If approval is given, Benedict said, Lindahl would provide 750,000 cubic yards of landfill soil for free. With the soil costing a minimum $10 per truck load, the soil would be worth at least $625,000, he said.
County commissioners, while expressing reservations, directed district staff to first find out what authorizations and weight limitations would be required for trucks to travel Lawrence Avenue.
Benedict told the committee that he believed the road was owned by the DuPage County government. A county Transportation Department employee, though, said that Bloomingdale Township controls Lawrence Avenue where it lies west of Thorn Road at the forest preserve entrance. The Village of Bloomingdale controls the road east of Thorn.
Daniel Wennerholm, village administrator of Bloomingdale, said that, once presented with a proposal, “We would be glad to cooperate. It is to be expected we would have some concerns about the scope of it.”
Benedict was less optimistic about the proposal, when told that the road is not county-owned.
“It’s not sounding as simple,” he said.
In other landfill business, the Environmental Services Committee received its first detailed cost projections regarding cleanup of the Blackwell Landfill. Costs are projected over the next three years at $1.7 million, officials said.
