cleanup · Cattaraugus County
Farwell Road Landfill
Town of Ischua
Former county-owned hazardous-waste disposal site where contamination remains under a managed remedy. Engineering controls, deed restrictions, inspections, and a site-management plan govern the closed landfill.
The documented story
What happened here?
Farwell Road Landfill occupies about 16 acres on a much larger county property along the western wall of the Ischua Creek valley. Cattaraugus County operated it from 1975 to 1989 in three adjoining phases, building a rural waste complex whose first two phases predated modern liner requirements.
Phases I and II were unlined and received municipal refuse, resource-recovery ash, sewage sludge, and state-approved non-hazardous industrial wastes until they reached capacity in 1984. Phase III had a compacted-soil liner and leachate collection system and accepted commercial and permitted industrial waste, construction and demolition debris, and incinerator ash before closing in 1989.
The distinction matters because the remedy did not excavate the landfill. It covered and managed the waste, added leachate collection where outbreaks had historically appeared, and established monitoring between the landfill and Ischua Creek, roughly 400 feet away at its nearest point.
Chronology in context
Turning points in the public record
1974–1975
Water-quality monitoring began before the landfill opened, creating a baseline for a site near a water-supply source and fishing stream.
1975–1984
The two unlined phases received municipal waste, ash, sludge, and approved industrial wastes.
1984–1989
A lined third phase operated with leachate collection until the county closed the landfill under a state consent order.
March 2000
DEC selected a containment remedy for the closed landfill.
2020–present
A revised site-management plan governs annual inspection, water-quality monitoring, maintenance, and reporting.
News record
Major news events
Coverage selected here marks a turning point in public awareness, policy, enforcement, employment, or cleanup. Links open at the original publisher or archive; WNYAtlas does not reproduce restricted articles or images.
Water monitoring begins before the county landfill opens
Because Ischua Creek was both a water-supply source and fishing stream, planners began baseline water monitoring before disposal operations, creating an unusually valuable record for later comparison.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency historical planning record ↗Three landfill phases remain tied to groundwater and creek monitoring
The site-management record documents unlined early phases, municipal refuse, incinerator ash, sewage sludge and approved industrial wastes, with groundwater flowing generally southeast toward Ischua Creek and continuing annual evaluation.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation ↗Environmental record
Documented impacts
- Waste and residual contamination remain beneath the cover across the three landfill phases.
- Historical leachate outbreaks occurred along the southeastern, eastern, and western margins, prompting collection piping during closure.
- Groundwater generally moves southeast toward Ischua Creek, making leachate and water-quality trends—not distance alone—the evidence needed to judge migration.
Response
Cleanup and controls
- Closure placed 12 to 18 inches of compacted soil and six inches of vegetated topsoil over the landfill.
- Leachate collection piping, drainage features, deed restrictions, and limits on excavation protect the containment remedy.
- Annual inspection and groundwater, surface-water, sediment, and leachate monitoring are used to identify changing conditions and needed repairs.
Then and now
The site today
Farwell Road is closed and managed, not cleaned to unrestricted use. Its public meaning lies in continuing stewardship: the cap, drainage, leachate system, monitoring wells, and deed restriction must keep working because the waste remains in place.
Atlas connections
Connected places
These collections explain documented material, facility, waterway, ownership, or cleanup relationships. Inclusion does not imply that every place shares one contaminant source or plume.
Southern Tier small-industry cleanups
Foundries, furniture and veneer works, machining plants, dry cleaners, and rural disposal sites show that Western New York's cleanup history extends well beyond its largest waterfront factories.
Farwell Road represents a managed hazardous-waste landfill outside the major urban industrial corridors.
Municipal landfillCarroll LandfillCarroll connects local waste disposal to wetlands, Conewango Creek, and long-term treatment.
Tool-manufacturing complexD.C. Rollforms / Proto ToolProto Tool brings electroplating, heat treatment, degreasing, and river-edge remediation into the collection.
Small solvent siteC&B Dry CleanersThe dry cleaner demonstrates how a very small parcel can create a consequential subsurface cleanup.
Coatings and solvent siteEssex / Hope SiteEssex / Hope documents a long-running coatings property with an amended remedy and a separately investigated downgradient area.
Chlorinated-solvent groundwater cleanupDowcraft — South Dow StreetDowcraft connects former manufacturing and vapor degreasing to continuing groundwater treatment and monitoring.
Municipal and industrial-waste landfillJamestown City LandfillThe former city landfill preserves Jamestown's documented municipal and industrial-disposal history while clearly stating its current Class 3 status.
Bronze foundry cleanupEllison Bronze CompanyEllison Bronze adds metal-bearing foundry material, stabilization, containment, and continuing management to the Falconer record.
Petroleum and veneer worksBush IndustriesBush Industries layers early petroleum use with later wood-products manufacturing.
Foundry and machine shopRandolph FoundryRandolph adds discarded foundry sand, drums, and asbestos to the southern-tier industrial record.
Die-casting and machining plantLexington MachiningLexington documents solvent use and long-term groundwater management at a smaller manufacturing plant.
Southern-tier landfills and disposal sites
These rural and small-community properties show different waste-disposal histories and cleanup stages. They are a comparative collection, not evidence of a shared waste stream.
The gravel pit received an estimated 600 drums from an industrial plant and later required solvent-source and groundwater remediation.
Landfill under characterizationIschua LandfillThe former landfill's mixed waste history and emerging-contaminant findings remain under state investigation.
Managed hazardous-waste landfillFarwell Road LandfillFarwell Road is a closed county disposal site governed by engineering and institutional controls.
Municipal and construction landfillCarroll LandfillCarroll adds a separate leachate, groundwater, wetland, and long-term management record near Frewsburg.