Senate bill would devastate landfill

If a measure being debated in Topeka, Senate Bill 293, were to become law, Allen County’s landfill would be in a heap of trouble.
The bill would restrict county and municipal landfills to accept trash generated only within their geographic boundaries. The change would profit private contractors that operate commercial landfills. In southeast Kansas, two such landfills are in Montgomery and Crawford counties.
Bill King, director of Public Works, said Allen County would lose about $365,000 a year collected from the disposal of trash carried here from other counties.
“Our income would go down, but we’d still have to maintain the landfill as we do today,” King said, with the only savings of consequence coming from not having to build landfill cells as often.
Daily maintenance includes crushing and covering of waste deposited, along with monitoring groundwater to ensure safety of nearby areas and extracting methane generated by the degeneration of organic waste.
The last cell constructed, five years ago, will be good for another decade at current disposal rates of 100 to 130 tons a day. If only Allen County trash were accepted, daily disposal would fall to about 30 tons.
“The counties bringing trash here should be just as concerned as we are,” said King. “If they have to use private landfills, their costs are going to go up.”
Today, Allen County’s landfill takes large amounts of trash from Anderson, Bourbon, Neosho and Wilson counties. Smaller loads come from Cherokee, Crawford, Labette, Linn and Woodson counties. The outlying counties pay roughly $25 a ton. Commercial haulers in Allen County pay $9 a ton. Residents pay nothing.
King and Commissioner Dick Works, who was on board when the county decided to get into the landfill business in a big way in 1995, have written letters opposing the Senate bill.
Works gave a historical perspective, noting that Allen County opened its subtitle D facility after federal law forced closure of many local landfills — including Iola’s — and citizens were faced with being at the mercy of large national solid waste companies.
The cost-effective breakpoint for disposal of trash at Allen County’s landfill is 100 tons a day, Works continued, and to achieve that level solid waste from nearby counties is required. He also pointed out participating counties benefited from lower transportation costs.
“The citizens of Allen County have invested their hard-earned money in their landfill the same way shareholders and private investors have invested in corporate landfills,” Works wrote. “To enact rules that would impoverish our citizens while rewarding corporate investors would be unfair.”
King pointed out the landfill serves a twofold purpose.
In addition to being a repository for solid waste, it is a utilitarian adjunct for the county’s quarry. After rock is removed the hole left is filled with waste, which is covered with soil and seeded down.
“That reclamation is much better than just having a gaping hole,” King said.
Quarry conversion to landfill was a strong motive in commissioners’ decision to develop the landfill in the first place.
Tipping fees — charges made for disposal — have been sufficient to build reserves, which have funded major improvements at the landfill, including construction of the most recent million cell which cost $2 million.
King said annual expense of the landfill was about $1 million, with a combination of tipping fees and a half-cent sales tax — in place for years — generating a little more than that each year.