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The 2022 subsurface event at Arbor Hills

Public-record photographs and video of a localized subsurface event on the landfill, summer 2022.

GFL took ownership of Arbor Hills Landfill on October 30, 2020, per their regulatory submission to EGLE (Nov 4, 2020, SRN N2688, signed by David Seegert).

In the summer of 2022, a landfill gas collection well on the Arbor Hills slope was found tipped in a bowl of subsided ground, with vapor and steam rising from the surface, pooled liquid at its base, and cracks running across the nearby ground. Infrared images taken a few days later show gas plumes at the site's flares and turbine stacks. Conditions like these — a displaced well, ground subsidence, heat and vapor, strong odors and methane — are what the site's regulatory record refers to as an elevated-temperature or subsurface-oxidation event, sometimes called a "hot well."

These are public-information photographs and video of the event. Every file carries its original camera timestamp, and several are GPS-tagged. Those timestamps place the record between July 26 and August 11, 2022, and the GPS coordinates resolve to the landfill itself (42.4033° N, 83.5590° W, Salem Township, Washtenaw County). The footage below is presented as-is; it is not altered or interpreted. The site's current elevated-temperature record — the readings that make this a live question, not a one-time 2022 event — is in the thermal map and the wellfield explorer.

The wellhead and the subsided ground

The affected landfill slope, where the gas well and disturbed ground are located, filmed from below.Recorded 2022-08-09 · 43 sec
A gas wellhead standing in a depression of subsided ground on a grassy landfill slope, a black hose connected, with faint vapor at the surface.
The gas wellhead standing in a depression of subsided ground on the landfill slope, hose connected, with vapor venting. Geotagged at the landfill.Photograph, 2022-08-08
The gas wellhead in the subsided pit, hose connected, with vapor venting from the ground. Geotagged at the landfill.Recorded 2022-08-08 · 5 sec
A close view of the wellhead base, with pooled liquid and steam rising from the wet ground. Geotagged at the landfill.Recorded 2022-08-08 · 19 sec
A close view of the churned ground and pooled liquid beside the wellhead. Geotagged at the landfill.Recorded 2022-08-08 · 7 sec
Cracks and fissures running across a grassy landfill slope, traced with blue marker lines, a wellhead at right and open countryside beyond.
Cracks and fissures running across the landfill slope, traced with blue marker lines, with the same wellhead at right. Dated about two weeks before the wellhead images, so the set documents conditions over roughly a two-and-a-half-week window, not a single day.Photograph, 2022-07-26

Gas at the flares and stacks

The site's gas-management facility — flares and engine or turbine stacks — seen from the grassed perimeter embankment.Recorded 2022-08-09 · 50 sec
Infrared optical-gas-imaging still rendering escaping gas as dark plumes at a flare area, with a monitoring tower at right.
An infrared (optical gas imaging) still showing dark gas plumes at the flare area, with a monitoring tower at right. Optical gas imaging renders escaping hydrocarbon gas as a dark plume; the original is labeled "methane."Photograph, 2022-08-11
Infrared optical-gas-imaging still showing a dark gas plume rising from a turbine or engine stack.
An infrared (optical gas imaging) still showing a gas plume rising from a turbine or engine stack. The original is labeled "methane."Photograph, 2022-08-11
Infrared optical-gas-imaging still showing a strong dark gas plume rising from a turbine or engine stack.
An infrared (optical gas imaging) still showing a strong gas plume rising from a turbine or engine stack. The original is labeled "methane."Photograph, 2022-08-11

The full set