Meeting Notice

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Dr. Christopher ‘Chris’ Stohr (retired, Illinois State Geological Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Mahomet Aquifer Council, Illinois Board of Licensing for Professional Geologists, former Champaign County [IL] Board Member, has been selected by AEG and GSA-EEGS as the Richard Jahns Distinguished Lecturer for 2025-2026. This lecture series honors the late Dr. Jahns by promoting student awareness of environmental and engineering geology through annual lectures at academic institutions.  The Jahns lecturer additionally typically visits AEG Chapters during the year.

  

Titles and Abstracts

  

Retrospective of the Earthline Hazardous-Waste Landfill Failure, a Case Study of Legacy Landfills and Dumps and
Improving Field Inspections to Reduce Groundwater Contamination

 

Subject of a landmark, legal-precedent setting trial, an unlined, hazardous-waste landfill was said by experts ‘not to leak in 100 years’ however, contaminants were detected in monitoring wells 3 meters from the burial trenches only 3 years after closure. Field and lab tests, and remote sensing measurements showed causes for the ‘faster than predicted’ contaminant migration from a hazardous waste landfill, but why?

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Legacy landfills are unlined, thinly-covered cemeteries of waste similarly constructed throughout the world. Most landfill inspections mostly rely upon institutional memory and traditional ‘walk over’ traverses to identify flaws and deficiencies for written reports. These defects can be better identified and mapped by image processing of freely-available airborne lidar, historical black and white photography and modern color infrared orthoimagery using GIS technology to direct low-cost, spot repairs for maintenance and custodial care to reduce undesired contamination from legacy waste structures.