Manatee County, Florida is pushing ahead with stormwater upgrades at the Lena Road Landfill, a legacy dump that predates modern environmental safeguards and sits increasingly close to the subdivisions and shopping centers that have transformed this Gulf Coast county over the past two decades.

The work is the second phase of a multi-year closure plan for the site. The focus this round is stormwater infrastructure, which may sound mundane but is central to keeping a landfill from becoming a contamination source. When rainwater infiltrates an old, unlined landfill, it picks up whatever is buried there and becomes leachate, a toxic liquid that can migrate into groundwater and nearby waterways. In a county that gets more than 50 inches of rain a year, sits on a high water table, and drains toward Tampa Bay and the Manatee River, letting stormwater run unchecked across a closed landfill is not an option.

Florida's Department of Environmental Protection requires landfill closure plans to include stormwater management designed to minimize infiltration and control runoff for at least 30 years after a site stops accepting waste. The Lena Road site, which accepted municipal solid waste under regulatory standards that predate the EPA's 1991 Subtitle D rules, has been working through that compliance process over several years.

The urgency has grown alongside the county's population. Manatee County has added roughly 140,000 residents since 2000, and the Lena Road corridor has seen steady commercial and residential development. What was once a more isolated site now sits in the path of suburban growth, raising the stakes if contamination were to migrate off-site and increasing community pressure to get the closure done.

Manatee County is seeking qualified contractors for the stormwater improvements under a qualifications-based selection process, the standard approach in Florida for environmental and engineering work. Once a contractor is selected and the project is complete, the county will remain responsible for monitoring and maintaining the site for decades as part of its post-closure obligations, a long-term cost that reflects the financial reality facing local governments across Florida with old landfills on their books.