IN ACTION — An excavator transferred waste from a gondola rail car to an articulated haul truck in Interstate Waste Service’s new gondola unloading facility at Apex Landfill. -- Contributed

AMSTERDAM — Operations have begun at Apex Landfill’s new onsite facility for offloading bulk commodity rail cars, a facility the company stated will provide up to 20 new jobs.

Interstate Waste Services, the landfill’s owner, launched operations April 10 with a soft opening for the facility itself, as ancillary construction was completed outside, said David Cieply, executive vice president of landfill and rail operations for IWS.

Estimated at $17 million, the project allows the landfill to accept and unload gondolas, or 65-foot-long, flat-bottomed rail cars with low walls and an open-air top. Cieply said cars will enter the landfill through its existing rail infrastructure before entering the unloading facility through a new rail spur. The contents are then transferred to articulated haul trucks, which bring them to the landfill’s working face.

The facility’s construction was done in collaboration with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency “to ensure it exceeded all building requirements and environmental standards,” according to a release from IWS. Design work sought to minimize odor and dust from operations, resulting in the implementation of a waterless dust suppression and collection system that gathers particulate matter through a baghouse filter device.

Employing 146 prior to the new facility, IWS has already brought on 10 new employees and hopes to hire more once operations ramp up this month, Cieply said. Jobs at the facility include laborers, heavy equipment operators and a conductor, who assists the train engineer with movement of the gondolas.

GROUP — The Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce hosted a ribbon cutting April 10 to commemorate the opening of Interstate Waste Service’s new gondola unloading facility at Apex Landfill. -- Contributed

This development marks IWS’s latest undertaking for Apex Landfill, which it acquired in 2020. One of the largest privately held solid waste companies in the U.S., IWS has invested more than $55 million toward equipment and upgrades toward its Ohio operations since the acquisition, which has led to a 22 percent increase in Ohio employees to date, according to the release.

“Our continued investment in our Ohio operations is a reflection of our dedication to doing the right thing for our environment and community,” Cieply said in the release. “Running a clean, safe work environment is the first priority of our employees every day. We look out for each other, our families and the community and look forward to creating even more employment opportunities for the Ohio workforce.”

Concerned mostly with solid waste transportation, IWS manages more than 20 waste transfer locations in New York and New Jersey, Cieply said. A handful of those have rail access, by which waste is delivered to Apex.

IWS already utilized enclosed steel rail cars that were 20 feet long. The blue-colored steel cars can only carry a little more than 20 tons of material, whereas the gondolas can accommodate up to 100 tons, Cieply said. The blue cars will still be accepted, and the two car types will now be transported together to Apex by the same trains as a “dual operation.”

Four steel containers can fit on a single rail car at a time, totaling 82 tons, while one gondola can hold 100 tons. With more tonnage capacity and less track space being taken up, the gondolas grant IWS “quite a bit of efficiency,” Cieply noted.

With the soft opening, IWS is taking in between five and seven gondolas per day, Cieply said. As of now, those cars are only carrying construction and demolition debris, which must be secured in the car with netting.

For the gondolas, customers have so far been providing only construction and demolition debris, Cieply said, but municipal solid waste could be transported at some point, depending on customers’ needs. Municipal waste must receive extra security in the cars, such as with a spray-applied mortar that cements on top of the waste.

“You won’t have any emanation of any odors (with the mortar.) It keeps things intact,” Cieply said.

According to its permit, Apex is limited to receiving 10,000 tons of municipal solid waste per day. There is no daily limit on construction and demolition debris, but the landfill has a yearly 3.6 million total ton limit across all waste types. Based on rough projections, Cieply said the landfill will not be close to meeting that mark.