Alternative Landfill Cover. Innovative Technology Summary Report
The primary purpose of an engineered cover is to isolate the underlying waste. A key element to isolating the wastes from the environment, engineered covers should minimize or prevent water from infiltrating into the landfill and coming into contact with the waste, thereby minimizing leachate generation. The U.S. EPA construction guidelines for soil hydraulic barriers specify that the soil moisture content and compactive effort may be increased to ensure that the barrier achieves a specified permeability of 1 x 10{sup {minus}7} cm/sec. However, constructing a soil barrier with high moisture content makes the soil more difficult to work and increases the required compactive effort to achieve the specified density, ultimately increasing the construction cost of the barrier. Alternative landfill cover designs rely on soil physical properties, hydraulic characteristics, and vegetation requirements to lower the flux rate of water through the cover. They can achieve greater reliability than the prescriptive RCRA Subtitle C design, especially under arid or semi-arid environmental conditions. With an alternative cover design, compacted soil barriers can be constructed with a soil moisture content that makes placement and compaction of the soil easier and less expensive. Under these conditions, the soil barrier has more capacity to absorb and control moisture within it, thereby enhancing the reliability of the barrier. This document contains information on the above-mentioned technology, including description, applicability, cost, and performance, data.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science and Technology (OST) (EM-50) (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 779109
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/EM-0558; OST/TMS ID 10; OST/TMS ID 10; TRN: AH200119%%4
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 1 Dec 2000
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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