Wildfire Debris Causes Problems At Sonoma County Landfill

PETALUMA (KPIX 5) -- The Sonoma County landfill has been packed with debris from the fires and it's caused some major gridlock for trucks trying to get in.

Now, officials are trying to speed up the process.

They've just started a new system at the landfill in Petaluma to help trucks get in and get out fast.

The Army Corp of Engineers has instituted a new system this week to make the dumping process exponentially faster.

Army Corp of Engineers spokesman Patrick Bloodgood said, "If you look around, the trucks are moving."

He described it as a "vast improvement on efficiency."

What used to be a two to three-hour dumping process, now takes less than one hour.

Rather than weighing trucks as they come in and out, the new system takes the known weight of the empty truck and subtracts it from the full load.

The central landfill usually accepts one ton of household waste, but thanks to this fire debris removal process, it now takes in ten times that.

In fact, thanks to the new system, Friday was one of the landfill's busiest days so far.

It's so effective that the Army Corp is considering expanding the system to other areas accepting waste.

There have been incidents of fraud, so to avoid that the Army Corp is also randomly checking the exit weights of trucks.