Fresno Municipal Sanitary Landfill

Overview

The Fresno Municipal Sanitary Landfill covers 145 acres about 4 miles from downtown Fresno, California. The City of Fresno operated it from 1935 until closing it in 1989, the same year EPA added it to the National Priorities List. Testing in 1983 found that methane gas and vinyl chloride had migrated off-site, and contaminated groundwater had reached private residential wells to the south.

EPA identified 30 contaminants of concern across three media types. Groundwater contains solvents and metals including benzene, trichloroethene, tetrachloroethene, dichloromethane, chloroform, barium, manganese, and selenium, along with various dichloroethane and dichlorobenzene compounds. Landfill gas contains methane, tetrachloroethene, trichloroethene, and vinyl chloride. Leachate contains tetrachloroethene, trichloroethene, and 1,2-dichloroethene. Residents relying on affected private wells as their only drinking water source face potential exposure to site-related VOCs. The city installed filters on those wells to reduce that risk.

EPA divided cleanup into two main operable units. Operable Unit 1 addresses the landfill source and uses an engineered cap, leachate control, drainage measures, and an active gas collection system with a flare. Construction ran from 2000 to 2003 and reached operation and maintenance status in 2003. Operable Unit 2 targets contaminated groundwater using extraction wells, a packed tower aerator, off-gas treatment, monitoring, and reinjection. The city launched an early groundwater remedial action in May 1999 and the full treatment system came online in September 2001. A second phase began in 2007 to address deeper contamination downgradient from the landfill. Part of the site was redeveloped into the Fresno Regional Sports Complex in 2001, with soccer and softball fields operating alongside the ongoing cleanup.

EPA has determined that human exposure is currently under control at the site, but groundwater migration is not yet stabilized. Physical construction has not been completed and the site has not been deleted from the National Priorities List. The fifth Five-Year Review, completed in August 2025, confirmed that the cleanup remains short-term protective of human health and the environment. Groundwater treatment and monitoring are ongoing.

Community members can review site records at two locations: the EPA Regional Records Center at 75 Hawthorne Street, Room 3110, San Francisco, CA 94105, reachable at (415) 947-8717, and the Fresno County Central Library at 2420 Mariposa Street, Fresno, CA 93721, reachable at (559) 600-7323. The EPA's Community Involvement Coordinator and Remedial Project Manager handle public inquiries.