SWA Awaiting Engineers Report on How Long Landfill Can Continue to Operate

The usual group of about 45 engaged citizens at the June 24^th Pocahontas County Solid Waste Authority (SWA) meeting heard Landfill Manager Chris McComb say that the new engineering company which is examining the landfill to see if its life can be extended is expected to deliver their report on that in about a week. The previous engineering company had advised that the landfill would be filled and needed to be closed down as soon as this coming fall, but their new engineering company has indicated that there might be other areas at the landfill that can still receive solid waste, possibly extending the useful life of it by 18 to 24 months.

That additional time could be very critical for the county, since under heavy pressure from the citizen group, the SWA has  backed away from the memorandum of understanding they had earlier reached with JacMal Properties, LLC to build a 4.1-million-dollar transfer station at the landfill. One of the complaints had been that this 15-year lease to own deal was just too expensive, and it should have been put out for bid since competition tends to lower prices. The counter to that was the SWA had felt there just was not enough time to start over with a lengthy bidding process. However, if the engineering company can figure out away to extend the life of the landfill, there just might be enough time to bid the project out.

At the meeting, however, it became obvious from their comments that many in the citizen group do not want it bid out as a transfer station build project, but want the bid to include other options such as using compactors and/or using contractors to directly haul solid waste to adjacent counties’ landfills. The SWA however, voted at a prior meeting to put a contract to build a transfer station out for open bid. At this meeting they continued to take steps in that direction. They passed a motion suggested by their attorney, David Sims which allows Sims to prepare the paperwork to obtain “Requests for Proposals” from engineering firms to help them to bid out the transfer station project. That paperwork includes selecting a Director of Purchasing, advertising for engineering companies to apply, creating a “qualifications check list” and interview scoring sheets. According to Sims – and this did not sit well with the audience at the meeting- the applying engineering firms will not be allowed to name their price, only their qualifications. Sims said the price would be negotiated after the firm is selected. Sims said this is all in accordance with state law, and that the state requires that an engineering firm must first be retained before the project construction bidding process by perspective contractors to build the transfer station can even be started.

The SWA members also voted to respond next week to the questions posed to them by the County Commissioners at the last commission meeting.

Sims also addressed some of the complaints lodged to the WV Public Service Commission (PSC) by citizens against the SWA. He said the objection to raising the green box fees was rejected by the PSC as the SWA has complete control of those fees. The complaint by the Town of Durban against the SWA was dismissed by the PSC because Durbin was not represented by an attorney, as required by the PSC. Sims said several other complaints are being consolidated and remain under consideration.

The SWA also announced that the billing for the upcoming fiscal year’s green box fees will not be sent out until July 15^th.

During the public comments, various people spoke about topics including:

• Opposition to having the SWA’s Attorney running the meetings instead of SWA President David Henderson. Both Sims and Henderson denied that is the case;
• Undeclared out-of-state trash is being brought into the county landfill, filling it quicker.
• Why are we looking at an engineering firm’s qualifications before knowing what they will charge us.
• And, under a transfer station, construction and demolition materials tipping fees will cost $299 per ton, which nobody will pay – Henderson said that is a ridiculously false price.