For the past several months, the Greater Lebanon Refuse Authority has been investigating how to finance upcoming capital projects that could total around $20 million.
Options under consideration were securing a bank loan with principal and interest payments, seeking a surety bond, and accessing the authority’s closure/post closure trust.
GLRA is considering terminating its trust and pursuing a surety bond. Doing so will free up the funds contributed over decades, enabling GLRA to draw on those to help pay for both capping the Schilling landfill and building the Heilmandale landfill’s next cell.
To that end, GLRA has prepared a request for proposal for surety bond providers that is under review and will be sent out in the near future, said Skip Garner, executive director, in his report to the board at a recent meeting.
“We’re trying to avoid borrowing,” Garner told LebTown. “The advantage of the surety bond is it releases all the money in the trust and saves us about $4.5 million in the long term if we had to borrow.”
As part of the permitting process, landfills are required by the state Department of Environmental Protection to have enough funds to cover the costs of both closing the landfill and monitoring it for 30 years. GLRA needs about $28 million for those, and currently has $26 million in its trust, Garner said.
When GLRA applied for a permit for the 52-acre Schilling in the early 1990s, it opted to create a closure/post-closure trust to cover both these costs.
But because of how the trust was structured, GLRA cannot access the funds to help with the costs associated with capping the Schilling landfill and construction of the Heilmandale landfill.
“We’re at the point where we have big capital expenses with development of new cells and new infrastructure,” Jim Zendek, GLRA engineering manager, told LebTown. “We have money in the trust, but we can’t touch it. It would be helpful to be able to use a substantial amount of that money for these projects.”
When Schilling opened, it was projected to reach capacity in 2018. But over the years, waste has settled and compacted, so the closure date was pushed back — and back again. Schilling now is nearing closure.
In 2019-20, the first of three phases of capping the landfill was completed at a cost of about $10 million, Zendek said. Phase II will be under construction in 2027. This includes about 11 acres with an estimated price tag of $4 million.
The final phase to be constructed during 2030 will cover the very top of the landfill and the haul road at a cost of about $7 million, he said.
Besides those closing costs, GLRA also must budget for post-closure care of the landfill. Funds must be set aside for monitoring and maintaining gas wells, routine water testing, and construction of new wells should any existing ones collapse. Additional costs include road repairs and maintenance of vegetation to ensure slopes will not erode in extreme storms.
“Everything we monitor now has to continue for 30 years,” Zendek said. “All of these are included in estimated post-closure care costs.”
GLRA may be the last publicly owned landfill in Pennsylvania with a trust, Garner said. Most of gone the route of surety bonds.
“Finalizing this transition will assure cost effective funding for all of our current capital expenses and will assure sufficient funds remains in place for closure and cost-closure costs,” he said. “This continues to protect the citizens of Lebanon County from having to bear the long-term costs of landfill closure.”
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