Commissioners Discuss Solid Waste Issues

At their November 4^th meeting, the Pocahontas County Commissioners discussed the future of solid waste collection in the county with Dave Henderson, Chairman of the county Solid Waste Authority (SWA,) who has been seeking financial support from the commission to build a transfer station at the county landfill.

Commission President John Rebinski mentioned that the deal for Jacob Meck’s Allegheny Disposal Company to build a transfer station at the landfill for the SWA to operate appears to have fallen through. He speculated, and Henderson agreed, that the $25,000 per month Meck wanted the SWA to pay to reimburse him for the cost of building the transfer station was the deal breaker. Henderson said the SWA now wants to build its own, less expensive transfer station using commission financial support and a 1% interest loan from the West Virginia Solid Waste Board. When asked, Henderson said he did not yet know what that monthly loan payment would be. Rebinski pointed out that under the Meck proposal, the $25,000 monthly fee would repay Meck the construction costs, and while it didn’t include the cost of transporting the trash to and from the transfer station, it was a 10-year “lease to buy” offer, so the county SWA would own the transfer station after making the monthly payments for ten years.

When asked about the transportation costs of hauling the trash from the green boxes to the transfer station, and then to another county’s landfill, Henderson said they have decided that the SWA should not go into the trash hauling business. He said after reaching that conclusion, the SWA will be overturning the motion passed at their last meeting to purchase three walking floor trailers, each costing $109,383.00. The three walking trailers were included in the Meck offer.

Rebinski said, and commissioner Jamie Walker agreed, that if Meck goes ahead with building his own transfer station for the exclusive use of Allegheny Disposal, that loss of trash volume going into the SWA’s Transfer station would present an impossible financial situation for the SWA’s facility. Marlinton Mayor Sam Felton added in that the SWA should not automatically assume the Town of Marlinton will use the SWA’s transfer station, as they will have to evaluate if it would be cheaper for the town to haul their own trash to the Greenbrier County Landfill. Allegheny Disposal’s and Marlinton’s trash combined make up a huge proportion of the trash collected in the county.

Henderson argued that Marlinton cannot legally haul their trash out of the county since they don’t have a Certificate of Need from the state, the only such certificate in the county is held by Allegheny Disposal. Felton said he does not believe a municipality needs one, but Henderson disagreed with that.

The discussion ended after Rebinski said he will set up a commission meeting with both Meck and the SWA to see if an agreement can still be worked out between them, as that would benefit both parties.

Be sure to listen to Allegheny Mountain Radio for Part 2 of this story, where we report the rest of the issues handled by the commissioners at this meeting.