The Ontario County Landfill Closure
What the December 31, 2028 closure could mean for where Yates County's waste goes, what it costs, and which records are still missing.
Start here: the short version
Yates County has no active municipal solid-waste landfill of its own. Most of the county's trash is hauled out of county — primarily to the Ontario County Sanitary Landfill in the Town of Seneca, Ontario County.
That landfill is scheduled to close on December 31, 2028. When it does, Yates County's largest single waste destination disappears, and the county's waste will have to be routed somewhere else — most likely farther away, and most likely at higher cost.
This page explains what is closing and when, who runs the system, where the waste is likely to go next, what the public record does and does not say about the cost, and which records PennYanCitizens.com is still trying to obtain.
What is closing, and when
The Ontario County Sanitary Landfill, in the Town of Seneca, Ontario County, is scheduled to close on December 31, 2028.
The closure date is tied to the operating lease between Ontario County, which owns the landfill, and Casella Waste Systems, which operates it. That 25-year lease expires at the end of 2028. On December 5, 2024, the Ontario County Board of Supervisors formally adopted resolutions committing to close the landfill when the lease expires and directing the county's Department of Sustainability and Solid Waste Management to plan for what comes next.
The landfill is permitted to accept up to roughly 2,999 tons of waste per day and takes in on the order of 900,000 tons per year. It is the single largest destination for waste generated in Yates County.
A closure of this size does not happen all at once. Ontario County commissioned an outside study in 2023 — the Landfill Alternatives Analysis, completed in 2024 — to weigh its options. That study found that expanding the landfill upward would add capacity but buy only about one additional year at the current fill rate, and expanding outward is sharply limited by the site. The county's decision was to close on schedule rather than expand.
Who operates the landfill system
The Ontario County Sanitary Landfill is owned by Ontario County but operated under contract by Casella Waste Systems, a regional waste company. That distinction matters: the county owns the site and sets the landfill's policy framework, while Casella handles day-to-day operations under the county's lease — and local collection and transfer in Yates County depend on private haulers and transfer facilities.
Casella's regional role does not end at the Ontario County line. The company also operates or contracts at other disposal sites in the region, including the Chemung County landfill and the Hakes construction-and-debris landfill, and runs the Stanley transfer station that Yates County waste already moves through. The region's single largest landfill, Seneca Meadows in Seneca County, is operated by a different company, Waste Connections.
No post-2028 destination for Yates County's waste has been selected. But because a small number of private operators control most of the region's disposal capacity, their capacity, contracts, and routing decisions — not the county's alone — will shape what happens after the Ontario County landfill closes.
When the closing landfill and the region's other disposal options are run by private companies, residents need to understand the operators' roles alongside the county's. The post-2028 question is not only where the trash goes, but who controls the capacity, contracts, and routing.
Where the waste goes after 2028
No replacement destination for Yates County's waste has been publicly selected. What the record shows is a direction, not a decision.
Ontario County's own 2024 Landfill Alternatives Analysis concluded that expanding the landfill was not a workable long-term option, which points toward exporting waste to other facilities after 2028. Public reporting on that analysis has indicated the county's non-recoverable waste would likely be routed to facilities in neighboring counties — with Monroe County and Seneca County identified as the probable directions. Longer hauls generally mean higher costs.
Several regional facilities could, in principle, receive some of that waste. None has been named as Yates County's chosen destination. The realistic candidates include:
Until the county and the private operators make routing and contract decisions public, the destination — and the cost — remain open questions. This page will be updated as those decisions are documented.
The unknown fiscal impact
The closure will have a cost. What that cost will be — for the county, for haulers, and ultimately for residents — has not been made public.
Two things are widely expected. First, hauling waste to a more distant facility generally raises transport costs. Second, losing a nearby, high-capacity landfill can reduce competition and put upward pressure on the rates haulers and municipalities pay to dispose of waste. Both point in the same direction — higher — but neither has been translated into a published dollar figure for Yates County.
PennYanCitizens.com has not located a public document that quantifies the post-2028 cost to Yates County residents: not a projected per-ton tipping fee, not an estimated annual increase, and not a contract showing the terms of a replacement arrangement. Until such figures are published or obtained, any specific dollar claim — high or low — would be speculation.
- A published replacement-disposal contract or its tipping-fee terms
- The county's own post-closure cost projections, if any exist
- Hauler rate schedules before and after the transition
Those records are the difference between knowing the impact and guessing at it. The records this page is seeking are listed in the section below.
A documented vote worth remembering
On May 13, 2024, the Yates County Legislature voted 8 to 5 to support a resolution opposing the expansion of Seneca Meadows Landfill in Seneca County — including a proposed 70-foot height increase at the site. (Source: Finger Lakes Daily News, May 14, 2024.)
That vote is worth holding onto for one reason. Seneca Meadows is the region's largest landfill and, as the previous section notes, one of the facilities that could plausibly receive Yates County's waste after the Ontario County landfill closes in 2028. Eight Yates County legislators are on record opposing that landfill's expansion — the same facility that may become part of the county's own disposal solution.
The resolution does not bind Yates County's future disposal arrangements; it was a statement of position, not a contract. But it sets up a question residents may want to follow: how the county reconciles a documented stance against Seneca Meadows' growth with the practical need to send its waste somewhere after 2028.
Records we are still trying to obtain
Much of what is uncertain on this page would become clearer with specific public records. Below are the requests PennYanCitizens.com is pursuing under New York's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). Each is listed with its current status. As records are received, this page and its findings will be updated.
Filing dates and responses will be reflected here as the record develops.
Page last reviewed: June 7, 2026
Underlying records current as of: May 31, 2026
This page tracks an evolving situation. Dates above reflect the most recent editorial review and the currency of the underlying public records, which may differ. Findings will be updated as records are obtained.