New Phase at Magheraglass
Landfill Site in Cookstown

Whilst landfill sites are often regarded as the ‘ugly duckling’ of waste management it is still accepted that landfill will have an important part to play in the disposal of our waste for a few more years to come.

With that in mind, Cookstown District Council has recently completed the development of the next phase of its landfill site at Magheraglass at a cost of almost £1 million.
Located around six miles west of the County Tyrone town, this fully engineered landfill site has been operating since 1997 and accepts non-hazardous waste for disposal as well as recyclables for waste transfer to other facilities.
Other facilities on-site include a leachate treatment plant and a landfill gas extraction system, flare and gas engine.
The main contractor on the scheme was TAL Civil Engineering Ltd, with RPS the consulting engineers on the 24 week Contract Programme which was completed ahead of schedule and within budget.
TAL, a market leader in landfill engineering in Ireland, has been involved in the ongoing development of the Magheraglass Landfill Site since 1996 when the initial development works were undertaken; two other phases subsequently followed.
The scope of the company’s latest work on Phase Four, which covers an area of around 13,000 sq m, included cut and fill excavations to bring the new cell to formation levels, as well as the design, supply and installation of a 500mm deep bentonite enhanced sand geological barrier. An existing surface water pond was also re-instated.
TAL Civil Engineering also supplied, laid and welded all geosynthetic lining materials, installed new leachate drainage and pumping systems and implemented surface water drainage measures as well as carrying out ancillary M&E installation and associated civil works.

PPC Permit
The Magheraglass Landfill Site is notable for being constructed in sand rather than rock. However this has led to very stringent design conditions for any new development being stipulated in the sites Pollution Prevention Control (PPC) permit. These added significantly to the cost of the Phase Four project particularly the requirement for a 500 mm layer of BES to be laid at a 1:3 gradient on all of the embankments.
The PPC Permit also contains a number of improvement conditions for the site, such as the installation of 25 additional boreholes for monitoring landfill gas and groundwater, which will be completed early next year. Strict environmental monitoring limits are set in the permit and to help achieve these, the site operates an environmental management system which has been accredited to ISO 14001.

Groundwater
Landfills, of course, contain substantial amounts of organic materials and hold a huge potential to pollute the local groundwater, so Hydrogeo Limited were called in by the consulting engineers RPS to ensure the new phase complied with all the relevant groundwater regulations.
The company’s hydrogeologists are highly experienced, having undertaken numerous detailed assessments of contaminated land and groundwater projects throughout the UK and Ireland.
Comments Chris Betts, Director and Chartered Geologist: “Using a groundwater risk assessment model we were able to establish the waste disposal site at Magheraglass met and indeed exceeded all the requirements as laid out in the Construction Quality Assurance documentation.”
Local building and civil engineering contractors Hamilton Contracts have been supplying plant and machinery, such as diggers, dozers, dumpers and compactors as part of the ongoing waste disposal and compaction operation at Magheraglass.
The Cookstown based company, which has also been involved in other building and construction projects for Cookstown Council, has been working on the site for the past nine years.

Future Plans
Comments the council’s Waste Manager and Senior Technical Officer, Mark McAdoo: “Future plans for the site include electricity generation from landfill gas utilization, construction of a waste transfer station for residual waste and possibly the installation of advanced leachate treatment plant.”
And he adds: “Planning approval has also been obtained for the development of the fifth and final phase to the north of the site. However as there is now sufficient landfill capacity to beyond 2011 the decision to proceed with any further development will rest with the new Mid Ulster Council and this will be influenced by the increasing rate of landfill tax (£72 per tonne in 2013) and the availability of alternative residual waste treatment facilities.”

Space Available
Meanwhile, the council has identified that it will have 30,000 tonnes of additional ‘space’ during the period January 2010 to May 2011 – now that’s being made available for sale at a competitive rate. Any parties interested in submitting an offer should contact Mark McAdoo in the Operational Services Department as soon as possible.