The days of financing projects by dipping into funds set aside to repair leaking landfills may be over for the DuPage County Forest Preserve District, President Dewey Pierotti said after reviewing a long-awaited audit.
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The $195 million fund falls short of the money needed to cover the worst-case liability scenarios and recreational improvements at the district’s nine closed landfills.
“I definitely think it’s going to change our attitude,” Pierotti said. “We were letting various departments of the Forest Preserve District borrow money from the landfill fund for a lot of things. We did it with the golf operation repeatedly. We were thinking of using it as a source of revenue to build a garage, and now we’re not going to do that.”
According to the report presented at a Forest Preserve Commission meeting last month, a prudent approach requires that the fund have $232 million: $156 million for repairs and cleanup costs over the next 40 years, and $76 million for amenities at Mallard Lake and Greene Valley, the district’s two largest landfills.
Although the fund is short of that mark, commissioners noted that poses no immediate crisis, because spending on recreational improvements can be scaled back or slowed until the district gets more money.
“We’ve got more than enough to cover the environmental concerns; that comes first. Once we get into it and look at the amenities, we may have to build a $50,000 playground instead of a $100,000 playground,” Pierotti said.
The landfill fund came from tipping fees paid by waste haulers that used the district-owned dumps.
It was long assumed by many that the fund must be in surplus and that the only question was how large. In June, the commission hired the environmental consulting firm Arcadis G&M to determine whether there is a surplus, factoring in possible liabilities.
In presenting the $108,000 study to the commission, Arcadis Senior Vice President J. Lawrence Hosmer commended the district for its foresight in handling the fund.
“The Forest Preserve District has recognized the potential for future liabilities and planned appropriately, despite a shortfall for planned recreational spending. The current total value of the landfill funds is sufficient to address the environmental liabilities of the nine sites for the ensuing 40 years,” Hosmer said.
The promised recreational improvements were an informal part of a 1992 settlement of suit brought by residents of Hanover Park near Mallard Lake and of Naperville near Greene Valley. The residents had decried the landfills as a nuisance, but the improvements they were promised were not formalized in a court order.
“When people were talking about a surplus, I don’t think they realized there was a recreational component,” Commissioner Roger Kotecki said. “Now that we know the numbers, maybe we just have to scale back and slow down. But it doesn’t mean we don’t do it at all. A promise is a promise is a promise.”
The audit highlighted the need to stop using landfill funds for other projects, Kotecki and Pierotti said.