Landfill board discusses new storage building, wastewater handling and road maintenance
During the regularly scheduled meeting of the Upper Platte River Solid Waste Disposal District (UPRSWDD) at 7 p.m. on June 6 at the Saratoga Town Hall, the board discussed options for dealing with washdown water, heard two letters written by Chairman Randy Raymer addressed to the Town of Saratoga and discussed constructing a new building at the Saratoga Transfer Facility.
Craig Kopaz, of Engineering Associates, brought up to the board the matter of a 2,000 gallon holding tank at the transfer station in Saratoga used to hold washdown water from cleaning the floors. According to Kopaz, the number of locations in Wyoming that will take wastewater has been declining.
“Initially I talked to Laramie and they can’t accept it, then I called up the landfill in Casper and they won’t accept it, but the wastewater treatment center will accept it in Casper. In order to accept it, they have to pull a Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP),” said Kopaz.
The TCLP is required by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to determine the amount of waste in a given sample. According to documentation made available on the EPA’s website, if testing reveals that a sample has a concentration of toxins higher than the regulatory level it is considered hazardous.
According to Kopaz, a full TCLP would cost $1,000 not including the cost of shipping the container to Casper and returning it to Saratoga. As an alternative, Kopaz suggested the possibility of installing an evaporation pond for the contaminated water. Used primarily in the oil and mining industries, the practice is becoming commonplace in other transfer stations as well.
“What about the birds and the animals coming through?” asked Raymer.
Kopaz told Raymer that while a fence could be erected around the pond to prevent terrestrial animals from entering, he would have to look into ways to keep the winged animals from bypassing the fence and landing in the contaminated water. Kopaz also informed Raymer and the other board members that he had spoken with Solid Waste Professionals in Laramie, who have been overseeing the landfill closure, and was informed that installing a wastewater pond was allowed in the closing process.
The board also discussed the construction of a new storage building at the facility in Saratoga. According to Raymer, a handful of interested parties had already contacted him about the sale of the current storage building which currently sits northwest of the recycling building. Raymer, however, wanted to get a new building constructed before advertising the sale of the old one.
Raymer also read two letters to the board, each addressed to the Town of Saratoga, regarding the maintenance of the landfill road as well as the ongoing issue of residents dumping their trash in the Veterans Island and Hot Pool dumpsters. In the first letter, Raymer requested the use of rotomillings from the recent airport resurfacing project at a reduced price or at no cost to the board.
“Over the many years, the town and landfill board have had an agreement to exchange services of filling and collection of fees for landfill and maintaining the landfill road for exchange of a monthly administration fee and no charge for landfill use by the town,” Raymer wrote in the letter.
In the letter, Raymer stated that the Town of Saratoga had not upheld its bargain in maintaining the road over the last 10 years and was requesting aid either in the selling of the rotomilling to patch the road or patching the road for the UPRSWDD.
Moving on to the second letter, addressing the issues of residents dumping their trash in the larger dumpsters, Raymer asked that the Town of Saratoga either consider relocating the dumpsters so that they were not as easily accessible or swapping them out for smaller containers. The use of the dumpsters by town residents to dispose of their trash, wrote Raymer in the letter, was illegal.
In other business, the UPRSWDD held the second reading of their budget and approved it unanimously. The board also reset the date for the meeting in July, moving it from July 4 to July 11.
The next scheduled meeting of the UPRSWDD will be at 7 p.m. on July 11 at the Encampment Library.
Reader Comments(0)