Construction Costs of Six Landfill Cover Designs.pdfVIP

SAND98-1988 Unlimited Release Printed September 1998 Construction Costs of Six Landfill Cover Designs Stephen F. Dwyer Environmental Restoration Technology Department Sandia National Laboratories P.O. Box 5800 Albuquerque, NM 87185-0719 Abstract A large-scale field demonstration comparing and contrasting final landfill cover designs has been constructed and is currently being monitored. Four alternative cover designs and two conventional designs (a RCRA Subtitle ‘D’ Soil Cover and a RCRA Subtitle ‘C’ Compacted Clay Cover) were constructed side-by-side for direct comparison. The demonstration is intended to evaluate the various cover designs based on their respective water balance performance, ease and reliability of construction, and cost. This paper provides an overview of the construction costs of each cover design. 1 Engineering Background The US Department of Energy (DOE) is in the midst of a major clean-up effort of their facilities that is expected to cost billions of dollars. These cost estimates; however, are based on “state-of-the-art” technologies, of which many are inadequate. Consequently, work has begun on the development or improvement of environmental restoration and management technologies. One particular area being researched is landfill covers. As part o