Notes from Town Square: Landfill changes coming

It has been in the works for years and there have been numerous articles and meetings about the changes coming ahead for residents and customers who use our landfill facilities, but it seems there can never be enough communication when it comes to projects that impact so many of us. Next week on Nov. 10, the Green River City Council will host a workshop that will provide an update on the “Cease and Transfer Project.” This simply means we need to “cease” using the landfill and build a “transfer” station by the end of 2017. No, this doesn’t mean there is a “cease or an immediate end” to the current landfill, but it does change how we will use landfill service and how we provide these services going forward, as we follow our mandated closure to the landfill on top of the hill.

The workshop is being done to highlight where the solid waste division is in the plans to close up the current landfill area by the end of 2017 and have the new transfer station in its place where the current scale location stands. Initial concept reviews on design, location, and flow for dumping and recycling will be highlighted.

The workshop is also being done to provide information to our top commercial accounts explaining how the new transfer station will be less efficient at handling their commercial waste and they may prefer to use the landfill at Solid Waste District No.1. For our current commercial accounts there will be a letter going out urging them to start planning for this transition sooner rather than later. One reason for them to begin this process earlier is that our commercial scale is in need of repair to continue to be certified. To replace the old scale now when we will have new scales added with the new transfer station doesn’t make fiscal sense. Therefore, pricing for commercial waste will be changed from a rate per ton to a volume base rate per cubic yard. These are established rates and the letter going out to all commercial accounts will detail out these specifics.

For the residents of Green River, we don’t expect you to see any major changes in services of solid waste. As a city, however, we will see a shift in how we manage our resources as we transition into utilizing the new transfer station and properly go through the landfill closure.

We will be managing more on how we “export” our solid waste materials versus how we cover them up. It will provide us with opportunities to become more efficient with updated technologies and solid waste platforms, how we think about recycling, as well as improving our cost efficiencies and resources we use to handle solid waste through our new center.

Yes, we have some time to go before the transfer station is complete and then the landfill is certified to be closed, but even this early there are items that need to be addressed to continue our progress and meet the deadlines. If you want to learn more about the cease and transfer project, tune into channel 23 for the next workshop on Nov. 10, at 6:30 p.m.

 

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