During a solid waste department work session this morning, interim commissioner Fred Messerle floated the meme of privatizing the Beaver Hill Disposal Site for use as a transfer station. The site which was once operated three incinerators to reduce garbage to a fine ash as opposed to using landfills has been run a transfer station since March and four workers were temporarily laid off. The incinerators have since been demolished and now the county must decide whether to build a new incinerator that meets current regulations or ship its trash to landfills outside of the county. It was clear from today’s meeting that none of the commissioners is interested in floating a bond measure to see if the public would like to build a new incinerator and the decision was made to make the layoffs permanent. The board also agreed to begin closure of the Joe Ney construction debris site.

In addition to the commissioners also attending were solid waste management,Cheryl Westgard and Scott Murray, engineer Dan Mumford and Gene Wong of DEQ. In the audience were Pete Smart and Bill Richardson of Waste Connections and city managers, Rodger Craddock, Terrence O’Connor and Matt Winkel.

Commissioner Bob Main claimed that factoring in annual maintenance a new incinerator system would cost the taxpayers upwards of $200 per ton where the trash is currently being shipped to a landfill which accepts all liability for a mere $47 per ton. Cam Parry claimed that an incinerator didn’t make any sense because air quality requirements will only become more stringent forcing constant upgrades to the facility. (Don’t permits usually cover a period of time to protect against this sort of thing?) Messerle argue that if the county is going to invest in infrastructure there are more important things to work on like the courthouse and the annex building.

Engineer Dan Mumford advised the board that an incinerator, in his opinion, doesn’t make economic sense and Bob Main said there wasn’t enough garbage in all of Coos County to warrant spending $30 million for a new incinerator. If volume is really the issue, it may be possible to justify the capital expense of a new incinerator if the county has commitments from other counties. If the private sector considers trash a revenue generator and the county solid waste operated all these years on its own… it must be feasible to operate at a breakeven point and ultimately even save the taxpayer’s money. Mumford is tasked with working with a consultant to develop scenarios and a business plan for a transfer station. One thing the board did not consider regarding a new incinerator is the possibility of burning trash from other landfills, something discussed a year ago regarding Douglas County which is fast running out of space.

The board decided there was enough staff at BHDS to run the metal reclamation program without rehiring any employees laid off last spring. Murray claimed they had been reclaiming metal already although on an “on and off” basis but it was agreed there was enough metal to be reclaimed to pay the $325,000 cost of the equipment need to extract the metal from the waste stream and the ash pits. There was no explanation of why the program was intermittent if there was adequate staffing. Parry wore is sincere face when he approved HR director, Mike Lehman’s plan to change the layoff status from temporary to permanent. “It isn’t right to leave these guys in limbo”, Parry said.

The board agreed to begin closure of the Joe Ney construction debris disposal site and will eventually accept debris at the BHDS “transfer site”. Murray said “its waste in and waste out” now so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Finally, if you discover any tsunami debris there is a special tsunami dumpster set up at BHDS. Drop offs of genuine tsunami debris can be made free of charge.