Infiltration, soil moisture, and related measurements at a landfill with a fractured cover, Illinois

Abstract

The cover of the Mallard North landfill in northeastern Illinois, completed in 1974, is transected by numerous fractures and locally contains subsidence depressions in which intermittent ponds form. Field measurements using tensiometers and soil-moisture blocks showed that the upper 0.3 m of the cover in the non-fractured sites dries readily and is responsive to climatic events, whereas the fractures and, locally, the deeper cover retain moisture and respond only slightly to climatic events. Experiments with sprinkler and ring infiltrometers showed that infiltration rates are generally high, of the order of 1–10 cm h −1 in most tests, 0.1–1.0 cm h −1 locally, and above 100 cm h −1 into open fractures. Runoff from natural rainstorms, estimated from runoff-plot measurements and pond changes, is low across the landfill. Laboratory studies of bulk density and hydraulic conductivity suggest that the cover is composed of an upper, more permeable topsoil and a lower compacted layer. The study results suggest a hypothetical model in which most rainfall falling onto the landfill infiltrates readily into the upper cover layer, than travels laterally along the top of the compacted layer until it reaches a fracture, whereupon it percolates deeper into the landfill. Percolation also occurs from runoff and interflow collected in subsidence ponds. The fractures and subsidence thus considerably increase the total percolation into the landfill compared with estimates from standard models which assume an unfractured cover and tabulated runoff and soil-moisture conditions.