ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Most people wouldn’t think of a landfill as being a particularly scenic spot, but the Anchorage Regional Landfill in Eagle River checks every box. Surrounded by the Chugach Mountains, there are trees and abundant wildlife, particularly bald eagles.
Bald eagles have always flocked to the landfill, particularly in winter. Some days there are as few as a dozen, but other times as many as 100, according to workers there. They hang out in the trees and circle the face of the landfill looking to grab an easy meal.
“It’s not ideal to have them here, it’s fun to see, but we want to do things differently,” said Solid Waste Services Director Kelli Toth.
Toth said they use a number of strategies to keep the birds from hanging around the active workings of the landfill, including loud noises, paint balls, even lasers to scare them away.
“We have a contract with the USDA to keep the birds moving,” she said. “We don’t want them to settle on the trash. We have a lot of moving things happening over here, so we want to keep them moving as well.”
Toth said the birds are also a reminder that people can be more thoughtful about what they throw away. Solid Waste Services is piloting programs to keep organics like food scraps out of the landfill that attract birds and hoping to expand those programs through the winter.
Another, long-term project called Waste to Energy would change landfill operations dramatically, generating electricity in the process and possibly keeping birds away.
“We want to completely not be doing this anymore,” Toth said, pointing to the equipment burying trash in the landfill. “We want to take all of this and put it into an incinerator and be able to turn it into energy, so we aren’t burying trash anymore.”
That project is still a few years away. In the meantime, Toth said, they are doing the best they can with the system they have in place, including covering the landfill at night which stops the eagle activity. Toth noted that many of the birds leave in the summertime when it’s easier to find natural food sources; she’d like to close the buffet in the wintertime too.
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