Lights out on the landfill: WM transitions ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä operations to transfer station

Trucks will come to the transfer station, a 100-by-150-foot building, and dump their loads. An excavator will pick up the trash and place it on a trailer that will be hauled to the WM landfill in Hurricane.

Arnold is anticipating about 400 tons, or around 20 trailer-loads of trash, to come into the transfer station each day. The landfill accepts about 800 tons of trash a day currently. Some customers will directly haul their waste to other drop-off locations.

Some jobs will transfer to the Hurricane landfill, but there won’t be any job cuts.

Travis Bayes, WM engineer, has been using a drone to measure how much vertical space is left in the 200-foot-tall landfill. The surveys done every two weeks have eased Arnold’s mind about having enough room.

“We’ve done — I’ll call it — on-the-fly engineering,� Arnold said. “If we put away this bench here, we can put more trash here.�

Covering the landfill

In the next few weeks, WM employees will start capping the uncapped sections of the landfill by laying down a fabric with netting in the middle called geonetting. Then, they will place a heavy-duty plastic liner before placing another layer of geonetting. Crushed rock is placed on top of the layers to provide drainage and a place for grass to grow. Arnold anticipates the landfill will be covered in grass by next spring.

The city of ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä, which owns the land, can develop amenities such as trails or a golf course on the covered landfill, Arnold said. It cannot dig or plant trees because of the landfill cap.

For 30 years, WM will monitor the capped landfill for any rainwater that filters through the waste. This water, which can draw out chemicals from the waste, is called leachate.

Recycling

The transfer station will bring a few changes to area users of the landfill.

First, the transfer station will accept recycling and then haul the recycled goods to Pittsburgh. For ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä residents, this will likely mean an increase in recycling efforts. Currently, city trucks take recycled materials to Beckley.

Arnold anticipates about 40 tons of recycling will be transported to Pittsburgh a week. Customers will be able to bring mixed recycling materials such as cardboard, plastics, metal and glass. Glass is currently not accepted for recycling by the city of ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä.

“I don’t know if we get this built, if more people will come,� he said. “I’m hoping it’s like the ‘Field of Dreams:' If you build it, they will come.�

Cost increases

Another change is the cost. The new cost of $93.10 per ton of waste is an increase of the current rate of $53.10 per ton that hasn’t been raised since 1994. Recycling will cost $120 per ton plus fees.

Last fall, Nicole Hunter, executive director of the Kanawha County Solid Waste Authority, said the increase comes from involving two facilities plus the transportation costs.

The city of ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä is one of the largest non-WM users of the landfill. The increased transfer station fee will lead to a $1.5 million increase in the city’s trash costs, according to a March budget presentation from Andy Wood, finance director.

While any increase to resident trash fees has to be approved by the City Council, City Manager Ben Mishoe said Monday there were no immediate plans for an increase.

Some trash haulers, such as the city of South ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä, will be taking trash directly to one of the two landfills in Hurricane rather than to the transfer station.

Rick Atkinson, South ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä's city manager, said the distance to the Hurricane landfill is about 8 miles longer than the distance to the ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä landfill. The projected additional cost of fuel is $7,500 per year, and there will be no fee increases for residents.

There will be a July 1 increase for residential and commercial WM customers in Boone, Clay, Fayette, Kanawha, Putnam and Roane counties, most of whose trash is taken to the transfer station. Residential customers will have a bill increase between $2.71 and $3.49. Commercial bills will increase by 18.17%.

One feature of the landfill that is not changing is the monthly free drop-off day for noncommercial customers. On the second Wednesday of the month, anyone can drop off waste for free. Hard hats and vests, which are required, are sold on-site.

Better customer service

WM customers will hopefully see other changes after a Public Service Commission order earlier this month that directed the company to take several steps to improve their customer service. Over 100 complaints were made about WM trash pickup service delays this winter, specifically in the Cross Lanes area. Some customers had missed pick-ups for four to five weeks.

WM argued that the delays were due to inclement weather.

The PSC staff had concerns about WM’s lack of communication about the delays, the inability of customers to reach a customer service representative and the lack of a list of customers who had service delays longer than a week.

The PSC ordered WM to take several steps, including:

• Telling the PSC a plan of action if customers are missed
• Implementing contingency pickups and a system to track customers with service interruptions longer than five days
• Issuing prorated credits to customers missed more than 12 days and filing a monthly status report on those customers
• Placing a customer service number on the website