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This stand of shrub willow is an effort to develop an alternative landfill cover system that will also create a wildlife habitat, park and recreation area and biomass for use in energy production.

Doug Daley, of ESF environmental resources engineering said, “We are using these willows to control the movement of water into the waste material. Essentially to keep the water from coming into contact with the waste because when that happens you get chemicals, that will be transported by the water as the water moves through the waste material. We’re trying to keep those contaminants from being transported outside these boundaries and into the groundwater and surface waters that are adjacent to the site.”

Shrub willow is being used because it grows well on marginal land and it grows fast.

Timothy Volk, ESF senior research assistant said, “You want to get plants started and growing on the site and rapidly develop a full canopy. The canopy does a couple of things. One, it intercepts rainfall coming into the site because water is held on the leaves and evaporated back into the atmosphere so it never reaches the site. The second thing is if it grows rapidly and develops a canopy quickly then it’s going to be pumping a lot of water off very quickly.”

Plus, shrub willow is not a very efficient user of water. A lot of water is used for every pound of wood it’s producing and those attributes give you very high transpiration rates.

Lysimeters, collection pans, are used to monitor how much water is getting past the shrub willow and into the soil.

Stephanie Lewis, ESF graduate student said, “When it rains and the water goes down through the soil and if it goes past the root zone it goes into a collection pan. Every week I come out and empty the pans so we can determine the percolation rate through the soil.”

And so far, the shrub willows are doing a good job preventing water from soaking deep into the ground. Eventually 60 acres of this former industrial site will be planted in shrub willow.