Landfill has implications for Crevasse Moraine

PALMER — Users of the Crevasse Moraine Trail System take note: the Mat-Su Borough isn’t planning on converting the trails to landfill use.

Well, not yet anyway. But the borough says that if and when it needs to use trail system land, it has a plan to minimize the impact.

“My hope is through increased technology and space savings in the landfill that we can reduce the impact to the Crevasse Moraine Trail System significantly,” said Jason Garner, acting solid waste division manager for the borough.

The borough’s master plan describes the 9.3 miles of Crevasse Moraine trails thusly, “traverse glacier-formed ridges and depressions or ‘crevasse-filled moraines’” designated for non-motorized uses. But, technically at least, most of that land is designated for landfill use.

Look at maps on the borough’s master plan for the trail system, nearly all of it seems to be underneath what could potentially be another landfill “cell,” or area to dump trash.

Currently, the landfill is working out of its third cell. By 2015, Garner estimates it will need to start work on a new cell. Cell 3 will likely be filled in 2016 or 2017. The location of the new cell hasn’t been decided.

On the maps, though, the very next cell, Cell 4, is right on top of the Crevasse Moraine trailhead. Garner said that doesn’t mean the borough plans to use Cell 4.

“There’s potential to go into the Cell 10/Cell 11 area (south of Cell 3) or actually Cell 5 (east of Cell 3) is another option right there and that wouldn’t get into the trail system any more than we are now,” Garner said.

He said a sign went up a while back warning that landfill operations were going to close the trails. The sign made it seem like the trails were to be closed and trash dumped on them immediately.

That caused a lot of concern among users and Garner said he has stressed all along that the trials aren’t closing and aren’t going away.

“We wouldn’t be pumping all of that money into upgrading the trailhead, paving the parking area, providing ADA access and everything else if we were just going fill it with trash,” Garner said.

Eric Phillips, head of the borough’s Department of Community Development, is the man in charge of overseeing those trails.

“The landfill has the authority to expand. Most of the trails were built knowing they were in the area where the landfill was going to be expanded,” Phillips said.

But he thinks the borough can easily plan for the expansion and keep impacts to a minimum.

“We’re going to know ahead of time what expansion activity is going to happen out at the landfill and so long as we have that land, that nearby land available to us, I think that disruption to the trial system can be greatly minimized if properly planned,” Phillips said.

That land he’s referring to is behind the borough’s Valley Pathways school off of France Road. Currently, it’s actually leased to the city of Palmer and has been since the 1970s when the city was planning for a landfill.

“The borough built the landfill and the city never did,” Phillips said.

It was state land then, but the borough has since taken ownership of it. The city still holds a 55-year lease to the parcel, though.

“We just need to get management authority over that France Road project from the city and our plan actually includes a relocation of the impacted trials,” Phillips said.

Borough Manager John Moosey agreed that the goal is to continue to provide both landfill services and popular trails.

“It’s a unique situation where we’ve got great trails intertwined with property that we need for our solid waste disposal, so we’re working through that,” Moosey said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or

andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.