cleanup · Erie County
Lancaster Sanitary Landfill
Lancaster and Clarence
Former sanitary landfill that also accepted industrial waste, including sludges, waste ink, chemical drums, and PCB-containing equipment. The landfill was capped under a state-approved closure plan and remains subject to post-closure groundwater monitoring and maintenance.
The documented story
What happened here?
The Lancaster Sanitary Landfill occupies former sand-and-gravel pits off Gunnville Road, immediately north of the Thruway and east of Lancaster Speedway. Disposal expanded across a broad tract during operation from 1961 to 1985, leaving an approximately 155-acre final-cover system.
The facility was called a sanitary landfill, but its record is not limited to household refuse. Investigators documented industrial wastes from at least 13 companies, including sludges, waste ink, crushed chemical drums, and PCB-containing capacitors mixed with municipal and commercial material.
Groundwater monitoring detected volatile compounds and metals around the landfill. In 1994 DEC reclassified the site to Class 4 because the approved cap and continuing operation-and-maintenance program controlled the significant threat; the agency also emphasized that private wells existed within a mile and that monitoring had to remain protective.
The closed mound later became an energy landscape. Landfill gas was collected for power generation, and a 2021 plan integrated a 34.3-acre solar array into the cap. Those uses do not remove the waste; they add equipment, drainage, and shared maintenance duties to an existing containment remedy.
A sanitary landfill also became an industrial-waste archive
Lancaster's closed landfill contains more than municipal refuse
2 townsLancaster and Clarence share the disposal footprint
Operating years
Municipal and industrial streams entered the same landfill
Records identify sludges, waste ink, drums, and PCB-containing equipment among material disposed with sanitary waste. That mixed history explains why the property became a hazardous-waste management concern after closure.
Closure and 1994 review
Grading and capping changed the site's regulatory phase
The landfill was closed beneath a state-approved cover. DEC's 1994 classification decision evaluated the completed closure conditions and shifted attention toward long-term protectiveness.
2021 onward
Post-closure care is the current cleanup
An updated plan governs groundwater monitoring, inspection, drainage, cap repair, and maintenance. Remaining waste stays in place, so the remedy depends on the cover and controls continuing to perform.
Chemical guide
Chemicals named in this record
These links explain potential hazards and exposure pathways. A chemical named in a record does not establish that anyone was exposed or harmed.
Chronology
Timeline
- 1961–late 1970s
Municipal and commercial refuse was buried with documented industrial waste, including drums, sludges, inks, and PCB-containing electrical equipment.
- Late 1970s–1985
The landfill continued accepting ordinary solid waste after the principal documented industrial-waste period, then closed under a state consent order.
- 1984–1986
The operator graded the waste, installed a low-permeability soil-and-clay cover, added monitoring wells, and began post-closure groundwater surveillance.
- 1994
DEC moved the hazardous-waste record from investigation status to Class 4, recognizing a properly closed site that still required management and monitoring.
- Post-closure era
A large gas-well network collected landfill methane for energy while cap, drainage, gas, and groundwater systems remained subject to inspection.
- 2021 onward
An updated plan assigned maintenance duties for the 155-acre cover and a 34.3-acre photovoltaic array constructed within it.
Environmental record
Documented impacts
- The disposal record includes industrial sludges, waste ink, crushed chemical drums, and PCB-containing capacitors among the municipal and commercial waste.
- Historical monitoring reported volatile compounds including 1,1,1-TCA, TCE, tetrachloroethane, chlorobenzene, and dichlorobenzene, plus cadmium, iron, and manganese in groundwater samples around the property.
- The landfill occupies permeable former gravel workings above shallow groundwater, creating a leachate pathway that made perimeter wells and nearby private-water supplies important parts of the 1994 classification review.
- The historical detections establish a reason for long-term monitoring; they do not prove that every nearby private well was contaminated or that old maximum values describe present water quality.
- Waste remains buried beneath the full cover system, and decomposition continues to generate gas and settlement that can affect drainage and cap integrity.
Response
Cleanup and controls
- The final cover reduces rainwater infiltration and direct contact. Surface grades, vegetation, stormwater channels, and settlement must be maintained so water does not pond or cut through the cap.
- Perimeter groundwater wells track potential migration, while gas wells and vents manage methane produced by decomposing refuse.
- Solar supports and buried electrical work must preserve the cap and drainage system. The 2021 plan divides inspection, repair, mowing, erosion, access, stormwater, and reporting responsibilities between the landfill owner and solar operator.
- Class 4 status means the closure remedy is in place and managed. It does not authorize uncontrolled excavation, groundwater use, or construction that could compromise the cover.
Then and now
The site today
Lancaster is a closed, energy-producing landfill under long-term Class 4 management. Landfill-gas recovery and a solar array demonstrate useful reuse of capped land, while the underlying remedy still depends on groundwater monitoring, gas control, drainage, vegetation, erosion repair, and protection of all 155 acres of cover.