“We needed to build to keep going,” said Scott Maciosek,
chairman of the Landfill Venture Group’s (LVG) Executive
Committee, the group that oversees landfill operations.
Strong relationships between members of LVG’s Executive
Committee and staff at Ayres Associates led to Ayres
being hired in 2011 as the landfill’s engineer. Roger
Nelson, a business development specialist at Ayres, was
an acquaintance of Charles Rayala Jr., then the chairman
of the Executive Committee. Maciosek, who took over for
Rayala, is also chairman for the Town of Cloverland. He
had a good impression of Ayres through a previous bridge
project in his town.
Solid engineering, improving efficiencies
among professional services extended
to northern Wisconsin landfill
By Tom Paquin
W
ith the Highway G Landfill
nearing its capacity back in
2011, landfill operators decided
to expand the landfill on its current site
near Eagle River, Wisconsin, and were
looking to take their engineering guidance
in a new direction.
Highway G Landfill
WISCONSIN
2│TRENDS
Rayala, who also is a Vilas County Board member, said
Ayres Associates developed a relationship and confidence
with the landfill management and committee before
being selected as landfill engineers.
“With openness and honesty in decisions, Ayres kept
us abreast of present problems and future needs at the
landfill,” he said. “They were straightforward and had
full knowledge of our present needs. Without pulling
punches, they addressed our financial needs head on.”
BOTTOM LINE MENTALITY
Looking out for the landfill’s finances has been a major
point of emphasis of projects over the nearly four years
since Ayres came on board. Starting with a review of the
landfill’s operations, including a 7.88-acre expansion being
constructed in three phases, engineers at Ayres have
been looking for ways to save money for the landfill. For
example, the landfill’s plan of operations was modified
to allow the acceptance of glass residual material from
a nearby recycling operation to be used as an aggregate
replacement and as alternate daily cover material.
Highway G Landfill Manager Mark Busha said his
operation faces the challenge of being a smaller landfill
trying to make it in an industry increasingly dominated by
giant corporations.
“We had financial hurdles we had to jump,” said Busha,
who has been manager at Highway G since 1997. He
said that when Ayres started as the landfill’s engineer,
“we had already gone through the process of siting the
expansion and had done the feasibility studies. It was a
matter of tweaking construction plans and coming up
with creative financing.”