County passes on landfill district

A solid waste district is not on the cards as a means to solve the county’s issues with trash, but the commissioners are still willing to explore the available options. A committee is to be formed over the next month to more fully investigate what possibilities exist to preserve the last remaining landfill in the county.

“We all agree that we need to dump, we just don’t all agree that we need to tax everybody for it,” stated Commissioner Jeanne Whalen.

Whalen was referring to the initial proposal from Dick Claar, Mayor of Moorcroft, to form a solid waste district. The board for that district would look for the best financial and practical way to construct the lined pit required by state regulations and make it available to every municipality and county resident.

If the board’s final proposal included the need for mill levy funding, that question would then be placed on the ballot for the voters to decide. Claar expressed at Wednesday’s meeting that he would still prefer to follow this route on the basis that the whole community would have a voice in the final decision.

However, the three commissioners felt differently. Commissioner Kelly Dennis voiced that the 30 days since the issue was last discussed have brought new information from a number of sources, including the Department of Environmental Quality and private entities.

Commissioner Fred Devish described having been contacted by a number of community members, all of whom seemed to share the same concern: the potential mill levy.

“Nobody wants to have another tax, I think that’s a big concern of a lot of people,” he said. If the commission forms a district, he said, the conversation from there goes towards said tax.

However, Devish added that, “I think the conversation needs to continue,” and that research should be done on such things as available grants and the potential for private enterprise to be involved.

Commissioner Jeanne Whalen described the research she has done over the last month, including speaking with regional waste management districts in nearby cities to find out how they work. There are alternatives to a mill levy out there, she said, such that users of the landfill be assessed an annual membership fee, and that a private management company operate the landfill.

Devish noted that he believes a bentonite pit could be an alternative to a lined pit and would be considerably less expensive to construct. However, he said, no decisions could be made in the single hour allotted on the meeting agenda and more research is certainly needed.

Later in the day, the three commissioners agreed to form an exploratory committee for solid waste. At the suggestion of Dennis, it will include eight members: one each from the four municipalities and four to represent county residents.

The commissioners agreed that they would like the members to include experts and possibly local private industry. Over the next month, this decision will be shared with the relevant entities so that it can be ratified in March and a committee appointed; in the meantime, anyone interested in serving on one of the county seats is invited to contact the commissioners.