MARSHALL — Windy days can cause a mess at the Lyon County landfill, if lightweight trash gets blown around, said Lyon County Environmental Administrator Roger Schroeder. But while the landfill sometimes needs to close down due to wind, Schroeder said it might not be necessary to make up for the downtime.

Schroeder spoke to Lyon County Commissioners on Tuesday, to ask that the landfill’s policies be updated. He said it didn’t seem necessary to extend landfill hours for garbage haulers, to make up for days when the landfill closes early due to high winds.

Schroeder said few haulers were making use of the policy, and the landfill was currently facing a staffing shortage.

“I think the main reason for bringing it to you at this time is for how short-staffed we are,” he told commissioners. “I wanted to make the change this spring, as this is the main time of the year that we fight with weather conditions.”

After discussion, commissioners voted to suspend the policy rescheduling landfill hours after windy days.

The landfill’s wind policy dated back to about 2010, Schroeder said.

“It primarily came from the need that we have at the landfill to close on windy days, to minimize the amount of litter that blows around,” he said. “The tradeoff at the time was that, any time that we would close, as an extra courtesy to the garbage haulers, we would open early the next day. If we closed before noon, it was scheduled to open two hours early (the next day), and if we closed after 12:00, one hour early.”

Schroeder said that the landfill hasn’t had to use the policy often over the past several years.

“In 2024, for example, we only closed eight times,” he said. “Two of those closures were on a Friday, and there weren’t any haulers that came in early on Saturday. The other six days that we closed, there were only four of those six days where we had any of the haulers show up early, and it was only one truck.”

“Our experience in looking through the data is, it’s a lot of extra that we’re offering for not much benefit to the haulers,” Schroeder said.

Schroeder said he spoke to the executive director of the Redwood/Renville Regional Solid Waste Authority, who was willing to have a truck or two bring loads of waste to the transfer station in Redwood Falls on windy days.

Schroeder said he hadn’t discussed the proposal with area garbage haulers. However, he said it could help with staffing shortages at the landfill. Schroeder said there was one retired landfill operator who had not been replaced yet, and another was currently out on medical leave. “We often times have to dig pretty deep into the bullpen to find somebody to help out,” he said.

“My preference would be that we completely change it right now and be done with it,” Schroeder said.

Commissioners voted to suspend the policy rescheduling landfill hours after windy days.