Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
A landfill cell at the Whitman County Solid Waste Transfer Site is nearing full capacity, with plans to seal it in the next two years.
The 2.9-acre cell No. 4 is used for demolition debris, asphalt, wood and concrete.
“It's 95 percent full now,” said Whitman County Public Works Director Mark Storey.
The last time the county sealed one of these was in 1993. Cell No. 4 was laid out at the same time, which has been the only active cell since.
Also in 1993, the county began to haul regular garbage in trucks to other sites instead of disposing of it in the landfill cells.
When the cell No. 4 sealing work gets underway – either in the summer of 2017 or 2018 – it will begin with spreading soil over the top, after which the Public Works department will go out to bid for a contractor to cover the cell with high-density polyethylene plastic. A two-foot deep layer of soil will be spread over the top and grass seed planted.
“There's a reason it'll cost a million dollars or more to cover it,” said Storey.
Once complete, the cell will resemble its predecessors.
“They just look like grassy hills that nobody is farming,” Storey said.
Funds to pay for the sealing are already in the Public Works budget, funded by landfill fees of $2.70 per ton of garbage, which supplies the Closure and Post-Closure Account.
The county now charges $75 per ton for the limited-purpose cell.
Due to the cost of permitting and lower volume of demolition materials coming in to the site, the county has no current plans to build another cell.
In the future, after the cell is covered, residents wanting to dispose of demolition materials will have existing private options as well as the county's current option for garbage.
“We would just charge the garbage rate and haul it away,” Storey said.
Initial work for the sealing will start with hiring a consultant for the design work for the rare project.
Once underway, work may span much of a summer, while the operations at the landfill facility will not be affected.
“It's probably a month-long project is my guess, or perhaps six weeks,” Storey said.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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