By Brenda TenBoer
In the future, garbage will be handled in a much different way than it is today. The days of burying mounds of plastic bags full of everything from scraps of food to old newspapers and liquid soap containers are drawing to a close, according to Big Horn County Solid Waste District Chairman Bob Kampbell.
Kampbell and the managers of the Powell, Worland, Ten Sleep and Thermopolis landfills recently met with environmental consultants from Inberg-Miller Engineers to review progress on a two-year study, the final results of which are due to the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality in July.
IM engineer Howard Johnson discussed several options for the Greybull and Lovell landfills that could increase recycling practices, decrease the volume of garbage baled and perhaps reduce chances of polluting ground water for the next 20 years all at the same time.
One scenario favored by Kampbell has a new regional landfill with a multi-million dollar liner to meet future DEQ permitting requirements constructed at Otto.
“I think it’s fair,” Kampbell said. “Otto has roads leading in from each of the other landfills in the study area that would make it convenient.”
Part of the regionalization process is that all of the recyclable materials would be sorted from normal household waste and the remainder baled and compressed in large blocks before being transported to a landfill for burial.
Kampbell is optimistic about the sorting and baling process, saying it’s convenient and that by recycling just the cardboard now tossed out with the garbage in Big Horn County, residents could save 40 percent of the current volume of buried garbage.
“Our plan for our two landfills is to make at least one of them a transfer station and then take it to the other one,” Kampbell said. “The thing is nobody is going to lose their job. If the south end becomes a transfer station, we’ll still have the same people working, just maybe doing different things.”
Kampbell said that in Big Horn County other realistic options include making either the Greybull or Lovell landfill into a “construction and demolition” site only, or C&D, and adding a recycling/sort area and baler.
“The garbage would then be taken to one or the other in bales to be buried,” he said.
Solid waste board member Jim Morris of Basin said people should not be alarmed about regionalization.
“The landfills would still be doing what they are doing today, taking garbage,” Morris said. “Transfer stations just mean that the garbage would be compacted.”
At the Lovell landfill, the soils are better with a higher concentration of bentonite, according to Kampbell. The Greybull landfill offers more acreage, but has more of a gravel base making leakage a high risk.
The state people are talking about requiring liners before they will permit landfills to operate because of the seepage from oil and paint.
The downfall of the Lovell landfill location is that Peterson Creek runs near the site and could present a problem because of possible contamination.
Other options that would gain the DEQ nod of approval include Big Horn County possibly shipping bales of garbage to the Worland landfill to be buried.
“That would work if there were a regional landfill board to regulate the gate fees,” he explained. “If we did close our landfills, except for C&D permits, then we’re at the mercy of Worland to tell us how much they are going to charge us.”
Environmental
impacts?
With the more than $400,000 study, funded with 90 percent of state funds, drawing to a close, the time has come to make some final decisions.
County commission chairman Keith Grant believes lawmakers and engineers are putting the cart before the horse by forcing a decision before environmental assessments are completed.
“My concern is that we must have ‘discussion of how the plan will be implemented’ and a ‘schedule for implementation’ so we must pick an alternative we can afford and live with,” Grant said. “I have a grave concern about making a mandated choice under duress without adequate information and with an inadequate planning process.”
Grant said that because the county is ultimately responsible for landfill operations, economics and the health, safety and welfare of the citizens that he wants to see studies done that meet National Environmental Policy Act guidelines before a final decision is made.
“Are they not aware that before we can have a comprehensive, clear and transparent plan we must first determine if we have a significant effect on the human environment?” Grant said. “I believe that in Big Horn County and Washakie County that we have a Categorical Exclusion situation.
“I do not think that our unlined landfills pose a significant effect on the human environment. We are monitoring water wells around our landfills, which may give us a piece of an Environmental Impact Statement, should it be determined we need to do an EIS.”
Still, the water well monitoring is only one piece of the puzzle, according to Grant.
“We will need to go farther out away from our landfills and check the ground water to determine what kind of ground water currently exists in the area,” he said. “I know that in much of north Big Horn County shallow ground water is not fit for man or beast.”