Preparation work continues to open a new cell at the Allen County Landfill.
The county received five bids for the project last week, Public Works Director Mitch Garner told commissioners Tuesday morning. He and an engineering firm representative are sorting through the bids from which he expects to summarize in a report to commissioners next week.
Work is expected to begin in March and take about a year. Preliminary estimates are around $5 million, but may change next week when commissioners consider the bids.
This will be just the second time the county has opened a new cell since the landfill, which opened in 1974, was converted to a regional subtitle D landfill in 1996.
Meanwhile, county road and bridge crews will have to prepare the site of the new cell. They’ll need to clear mostly concrete and rock, as well as some older equipment.
Garner and Mark Griffith, road and bridge director, told commissioners they will need to clear more land than expected — about 500 feet — to create a wider buffer zone for construction.
That leaves just a month to clear the area.
Griffith asked commissioners for permission to lease a larger dump truck to haul the rock and concrete. The concrete has rebar that could damage the county’s dump trucks. The larger truck also has about twice the capacity of the county’s equipment.
Commissioners expressed sticker shock at the $14,135 price tag to lease the dump truck from Foley Equipment for one month, but ultimately approved the request. The entire project is costly, Commissioner Jerry Daniels noted.
“It’s a small price for prepping that area and we don’t want to lose the rock,” Daniels said.
Garner said he expects another additional expense to extend electric service to the area. The landfill has electric service, but will need additional poles and lines to reach the new area.
GRIFFITH also told the county he had received a new pothole patching machine the county purchased before the end of the year. Crews had already used it on a bridge near Humboldt, but the weather turned too cold to do much more.
The pothole patching machine was purchased using $40,000 in funds from Monarch Cement, which gave Neosho and Allen counties $100,000 for road repairs caused when heavy trucks traveled county roads as U.S. 169 was being reconstructed between Humboldt and Chanute.
Delinquent tax sale
County counselor Bob Johnson told commissioners he expects to have a sale in April for properties with delinquent taxes.
There’s still time for property owners to pay past-due taxes and avoid being included in the sale.
All owners who have properties included in the sale have been formally served with notice, Johnson said. A list of delinquent properties will be published in the newspaper before the sale takes place.
