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10/9/02

Jackson, Macon landfill contract scrutinized

By Scott McLeod
Nearly seven years into a 20-year pact to share a landfill, some cracks may be showing in the agreement between Macon and Jackson counties.

A consultant used by both counties — John Thornton of Altamont Environmental — says the current agreement is costing taxpayers more than other available alternatives.

“Simply from the standpoint of both counties looking at their budgets, they’d both be better off ending the agreement,” said Thornton.

Politicians and other officials from the two counties also are beginning to bring up flaws in the agreement.

At a county commissioner forum two weeks ago, Macon County candidate Mickey Duvall (who led the Republican ticket for District II and is a former county commissioner) proposed closing the Macon County landfill and transferring trash out of county as a way to save money.

“Jackson County is not doing anything to find a landfill,” said Duvall. “We need to ship our trash out of county.”

After that meeting, Macon County Manager Sam Greenwood said Jackson County has not sent as much trash to the Macon County landfill as originally proposed, and so Macon residents are paying a higher cost of operating the landfill than originally projected.

“It costs Macon $3.5 million a year to operate the landfill,” said Greenwood. “The question is whether we want to give up space for Jackson County if they don’t make a commitment. Our solid waste committee is evaluating these issues.”

In Jackson, county board chairman Jay Denton said Macon probably is concerned about the amount of waste coming over Cowee Mountain from Jackson.

“Macon does have a legitimate concern because of our recycling efforts and our C&D landfill,” said Denton. “We have taken a lot of debris out of the waste stream, but I won’t apologize for doing a better job of recycling.”

And on Aug. 12, the Jackson County Solid Waste Advisory Board sent a list of “priorities for action to county manager Ken Westmoreland. Number one on the advisory board’s list was: “Alternatives to the Macon County Landfill for the disposal of municipal solid waste, to include incineration, composting, and transfer to another landfill.”



The agreement

The solid waste agreement signed in December of 1995 was meant to solve the solid waste problems that many counties in North Carolina were facing. EPA regulations for so-called “Title D” solid waste landfills had established new — and expensive — construction mandates and post-closure guidelines. By joining forces, Macon and Jackson county taxpayers would benefit from the economies of scale, and the headaches of dealing with solid waste would be solved for up to 50 years. When the Macon County landfill was full and closed, Jackson would then assume responsibility for siting a landfill.

The agreement set firm commitments for repaying construction costs for the Macon landfill. Operating expenses and post-closure costs, however, were to be split based on how much waste each county was sending to the landfill. The agreement said nothing about how much solid waste each was expected to generate.

Now, however, only about one-third of the solid waste going to the landfill is coming from Jackson County.

“We each generate about the same amount of trash, but some of theirs does not come to Macon County,” said landfill supervisor Chris Stahl.

All of the solid waste taken to the Staffed Recycling Centers in Jackson County does go to the landfill in Macon County. However, some of the private business and commercial trash that is put in dumpsters goes elsewhere, mainly to the transfer station in Cherokee before being sent to a landfill in Palmetto, S.C. That greatly reduces the amount going to Macon.


The alternatives

There is no argument that dealing with solid waste has become an expensive proposition for counties.

Jackson County actually started sending solid waste to the landfill in 1996, and before that gave Macon the agreed-upon $1.389 million for building the landfill. When Macon built a baling facility, Jackson County taxpayers footed half the bill. In the current budget, Jackson County has allocated $2.39 million for solid waste, including payments to Macon, operating its own construction and demolition materials landfill, and for payments to GDS (the company that contracts to operate the staffed recycling centers and hauls trash to the Macon landfill).

In the years since Jackson and Macon signed their agreement, the solid waste industry has changed, said Thornton of Altamont Environmental.

“At the time the counties struck the deal, given the information available, it was not unreasonable,” he said.

Thornton says that while it is difficult to say whether each side is living up to the original agreement, they may both be better off looking at alternatives.

One of those is for Macon to keep its landfill open but reduce the amount of trash entering the landfill to a trickle. To do that, both counties would have to take their solid waste elsewhere. There are large, commercial landfills in South Carolina and Georgia that take trash, and those charge much less per ton than it costs to operate the landfill currently being used in Macon.

By keeping the Macon site open, closure costs could be delayed and operational costs could be greatly reduced.

“There are certainly options open to Macon that should be explored,” said Thornton.

Stahl agreed that if the landfill was full then building a transfer station in one of the counties and shipping all the solid waste to one of the larger landfills would probably provide a less expensive option. How-ever, since up front money has already been spent siting the Macon landfill, the alternatives will have to be carefully considered.

“Since we created this facility, the only way to get our money back is to fill it up,” he said.