As new county-Xcel deal comes together, activist explains how waste goes back to farmland

French Island incinerator could burn county’s trash through 2040.

Not everyone is a fan of a new contract between La Crosse County and Xcel Energy to supply garbage to the company’s French Island incinerator.

Activist Guy Wolf led the charge several years ago to force Xcel to comply with federal clean air rules at the plant. That action removed some heavy metals from the plant’s emissions but it couldn’t completely eliminate elements like mercury, lead and cadmium.

“They can get taken away and blown across the atmosphere and into our lakes across Wisconsin and Minnesota, which they’ve done,” Wolf said. “Or, they can end up in a landfill but they’re still there. “

The ash from the waste burning process in the incinerator is currently dumped into the landfill, where Wolf talks about another process.

“We pull up that material,” Wolf explained. “We call it leachate, and then we take it to the city treatment facility. That moisture is driven off of it and those metals go to the bottom in the sludge. 

“And, eventually, we take that sludge and apply it to farm field all over La Crosse County.”

Once in those field?

“(We have to) ask ourselves,” Wolf said with a little laugh, “‘Do we want to continue to eat our own waste?'”

The county and Xcel could extend a current contract to supply the plant with garbage through 2040.