OVERVIEW

The Solid Waste Facility Datalayer was compiled by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to track the locations of landfills, transfer stations, and combustion facilities. This statewide datalayer contains the majority of facilities currently regulated under DEP's solid waste regulations (310 CMR 16.00 & 19.00). Polygons in the datalayer include thirteen specific types of solid waste facilities (see ATTRIBUTES below) and are stored in ArcSDE as two layers -- SW_POLY (polygons) and SW_PT (point feature class, with one point for each polygon).

Please note although the majority of the polygons represent landfills, only a small fraction of those landfills are active. In addition, this datalayer does not contain all solid waste facilities known to DEP. The MassGIS Land Use datalayer has waste site and mining classifications that may represent landfills not in the solid waste datalayer.

The solid waste datalayer was originally digitized from USGS Quadrangle maps (1:25,000) filed as part of the operating permit (310 CMR 19.00) or siting (310 CMR 16.00) requirements for landfills. It has been updated as described below.

1994 and earlier: DEP regional office files were searched for locus maps and site plans which designated the location of solid waste facilities. In some cases the footprint of the facility was located on the map, in other instances a general location was marked on the map. These were hand-drawn onto a master set of USGS topographic quadrangle maps from which the datalayer was digitized. When possible, point locations were updated with polygons from MassGIS 1985 land use data. Point locations were buffered to reflect the reported acreage (when insufficient data was available, 29.9 acres was used).

1997 and beyond: Locus maps and site plans from regional and Boston office files were automated directly into Arc/Info while using scanned USGS quads &/or digital orthophotos as background images. Point locations were buffered as described above; several of these point locations were collected using global positioning systems technology (GPS). One polygon was copied from the Protected and Recreational Open Space Datalayer.

The Department of Environmental Protection will continue its program of field checking existing facilities using GPS.  1:5,000 digital orthophoto basemaps are being used for site verification. DEP plans to use GPS during site inspections to further enhance the quality of the datalayer.

Feature attributes associated with each polygon include:

ACRES		10 / N		Facility Area in Acres
REGION		6 / C		DEP Administrative Region (C =Central, N = Northeast, S = Southeast, W = Western)
LNK		10 / C		Unique identifier and link to related tables SW.DAT and SW.LDT

RELATED DATABASE TABLE

DEP maintains a Solid Waste Facility Database which tracks the liner and operational status, facility type, capacity, owner and operator contact information, and years of operation of solid waste facilities. A subset of this database, containing selected information about the one or many solid waste facilities that may be associated with a given polygon is found within the SW datalayer (SW_POLY_DAT). The Facilities database is available via the Internet: http://www.mass.gov/dep/bwp/dswm/dswmpubs.htm.

Facility attributes (SW_POLY_DAT):

LNK		Link to SW_PAT or SW_PT
TYPE		1 = Landfill,  2 = Combustion Facility, 3 = Transfer Station, 4 = Compost Facility, 9 = Co-located Landfills (multiple landfill polygon), 0 = Other (EP, IL, RE, TI).
ID		Unique Identification Number assigned to each solid waste facility
SITE_NAME		Facility name found in Solid Waste Database
ADDRESS		Facility address
TOWN		Municipality
ACRES_BOH		Number of acres site assigned by local Board of Health
ACRES_DEQE		Number of acres approved by DEP for solid waste handling or fill, or an actual landfill footprint
ASSIGNDATE		Date of site assignment, by local Board of Health
CAPPING		Landfill cap code:   A = Completely Capped   B = Partially Capped   C = Not Capped   D = Excavated   Null = Unknown Cap
CAP_TEXT		Textual description of landfill cap (listed above)
CAPYEAR		Year cap construction or excavation completed
CAPCERTDAT		Date DEP certified the closure or excavation of a landfill
CLOSEBASE		Year facility ceased operations
LEACH_COL		Method of leachate collection (sewer, holding tank, lagoon)
LINER		Landfill liner code. Null for non-landfill records   Y = some or all of the landfill is lined   N = no part of the landfill is lined
LINER_TEXT		Landfill liner status (lined/unlined as defined above)
OPENBASE		Year facility began handling solid waste
OPERATOR		Name of facility operator
OPER_TYPE		Operator Type (Federal, Municipal, Private, State, Unknown)
OWNER		Name of owner
OWNER_TYPE		Owner Type (Federal, Municipal, Private, State, Unknown)
RTN		DEP BWSC Release Tracking Number
STATUS		Facility Status:   A = Active: Presently operating   I = Inactive: Not operating, not properly closed   C = Closed: Not operating; unlikely to operate in the future
TONS_DAY		Tons per day of solid waste a facility may handle or dispose according to permit or actual operations data
LOCNOTE		Information about the location (ex. transfer station located at landfill)
MAPTXT		Label item: Facility ID - <status>
IDNUM		ID item without the two-character Facility Type abbreviation
FAC_TYPE		Facility type. See description of codes below.
TOWN_ID		MassGIS municipality ID (from TOWNS layer)

Facility information and feature-based documentation are linked to the GIS datalayer via the relate item LNK. LNK is a concatenation of the town-id and a character representing the unique identifier (001 = A, 002 = B, etc).

e.g.
LNK=004ABD   ID=SL0004.001   TYPE=1
 - A sanitary landfill in Adams (TOWN-ID 4), the first registered facility in the town.
LNK=004ABD   ID=TR0004.002   TYPE=0
 - A transfer station in Adams (TOWN-ID 4), the second registered facility in the town.
LNK=004C     ID=SG0004.003   TYPE=1
 - A sludge landfill in Adams (TOWN-ID 4), the third registered facility in the town.
LNK=004ABD   ID=CO0004.004   TYPE=0
 - A compost site in Adams (TOWN-ID 4), the fourth registered facility in the town

Note: SL0004.001, TR0004.002 and CO0004.004 are represented by the same polygon (LNK = 004ABD).  SL0004.001 and SG0004.003 are both landfills (TYPE = 1), located at different polygons (LNK = 004ABD and 004C).

Solid Waste Facility IDs are assigned according to Facility Type (two-character abbreviation), Town (digits preceding decimal), and a unique identifier (digits following decimal).

Types of Facilities (from FAC_TYPE item in the DAT table):
 

AL		Ash landfill; takes or has taken only ash.
CO		Compost site; a registered yard waste composting site.
DL		Demolition landfill; takes or has taken only construction & demolition (C&D) waste and may take wood waste.
EP		Epic (Unconfirmed) Site; identified by aerial photos taken approximately 1972-74 by Water Supply as possible solid waste sites, or a site with minimum data to support its existence. When a site is verified, its type is changed to a more specific site type.
IL		Illegal; solid waste facility that requires site assignment by the local Board of Health but has not obtained it and continues to operate. Most commonly refers to illegal transfer station operations.
MI		Municipal incinerator; burns MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) without energy recovery.
RE		Recycling facility; materials recovery facility or other recycling operation that does not require site assignment. RE does not include Recycling Drop-off Centers.
RR		Resource Recovery Facility; burns MSW with mass burn or refuse derived fuel technology with energy recovery.
SL		MSW landfill; may take or have taken MSW, in addition may take or have taken wood waste, C&D, sludge, ash or other solid waste. SL includes historic open or burning dumps used to dispose of MSW.
SG		Sludge landfill; takes or has taken sludge from water supply or waste water treatment only. These landfills are primarily tracked and regulated by DEP Division of Water Pollution Control.
SD		Stump landfill or wood reclamation facility; takes or has taken only clean wood waste.
TI		Tire pile
TR		Transfer station; any facility that handles, but does not dispose of solid waste and requires site assignment.

SPATIAL VIEWS

Using the polygon layer (SW_POLY) and SW_POLY_DAT table, 21 spatial views (selected sets of features) based on facility type were created in ArcSDE. These views are distributed as separate shapefiles along with the full layers and tables in the download at the top of this page. The views are named as follows:

SW_POLY_ACTIVE SW_POLY_ASH SW_POLY_CAPPED SW_POLY_CLOSED SW_POLY_COMBUSTION SW_POLY_COMPOST SW_POLY_DEMOLITION

SW_POLY_EPIC SW_POLY_INACTIVE SW_POLY_LANDFILLS SW_POLY_LINED SW_POLY_MSW SW_POLY_NOTCAPPED SW_POLY_NOTLINED

SW_POLY_OTHER SW_POLY_PARTIALLYCAPPED SW_POLY_RECYCLING SW_POLY_SLUDGE SW_POLY_STUMP SW_POLY_TRANSFER SW_POLY_UNKNOWNCAP

LOCATION DOCUMENTATION

Location metadata are stored in the Location Documentation Table (SW_POLY_LDT). See DEP Standards for GIS Data for details. The methods of data input are coded as follows (from the DIG_METHOD field in the LDT table):
 

DIG-METHOD		Description		Number of Polygons
F		Footprint digitized from USGS quadrangle		665
P		Point digitized from USGS quadrangle		89
UTM		Point located by UTM coordinates		52
GPS		Perimeter or front gate points collected with GPS		4
LU		Polygon copied from MassGIS Land Use Datalayer		4
OS		Polygon copied from MassGIS Protected and Recreational Open Space Datalayer		1

The DEP Bureau of Waste Prevention is maintaining this datalayer.

In the March 2006 update, these changes were made: 76 polygons added, 5 polygons deleted, 140 refined polygons, and 54 attribute records edited.  TYPE = 3 was refined to include only Transfer Stations, TYPE = 4 was added for compost sites and TYPE = 9 was added to represent co-located landfills. To ensure proper selection of landfills, 11 duplicate features were added for co-located landfills (multiple landfill records associated with the same polygon). Also, the SW_POLY_UNKNOWNLINED spatial view and SW_POLY_DIG and SW_POLY_TYPE tables were discontinued.

In the December 2007 update, these changes were made:

• 44 new polys
• 4 polys deleted
• 57 polys redrawn
• 18 ID's edited (ex. Adding a TR to an existing LF polygon)

Last Updated 1/8/2008
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