UPRSWDD develops plan for animal disposal

A week after holding their regular meeting at the Riverside Town Hall, the Upper Platte River Solid Waste Disposal District (UPRSWDD) returned to the building on May 12 for a workshop on how to move forward with the disposal of animal carcasses following the landfill closure in Saratoga.

The transfer station outside Saratoga has been operational for nearly three years. Since then, the municipal solid waste (MSW) of users of the site has been transported elsewhere while construction and demolition (CD) debris is disposed of on the site. In that time, residents and meat processors have also been able to dispose of whole animal carcasses and offal in a section of the old landfill.

The ability for the UPRSWDD to do that, however, has always had a deadline; that of the landfill closure. Since the start of operations of the transfer station in Saratoga, the solid waste district has sought guidance from the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) on how to continue disposing of animal carcasses.

Residents with waste for processing their own harvest during hunting season and local meat processors are not the only ones who have used the dead animal pit in Saratoga. Even now, both the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) and the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT still dispose of whole animal carcasses, often roadkill, in the dead animal pit. According to Ron Munson, who has held the contract for both the Saratoga and Encampment sites, both state departments still bring in whole deer and elk carcasses.

For a time, the solid waste district was under the impression that they were presented with only two options to the problem; incineration or composting. With incineration considered to be too cost prohibitive for the district, the UPRSWDD began exploring composting options. UPRSWDD member Leroy Stephenson attended a composting workshop in December and options for composting were discussed at the April 1 meeting of the disposal district board.

At the meeting earlier this month, however, a point of discussion was that the district could transport “incidental” amounts of animal waste along with MSW to Laramie for disposal at their facility. What is currently considered to be an incidental amount of animal waste in the MSW load is for animal waste to be less than 50 percent of the load.

During the May 12 workshop, Craig Kopasz of Engineering Associates informed the board members that as long as the district included only incidental amounts of animal waste within their MSW stream, their tipping fees would not increase.

“So, basically, the Laramie landfill rates didn’t change unless they thought … the dead animal parts exceeded 50 percent of the load,” said Stephenson.

“That’s correct. That’s their status right now. That could change. That’s the risk I want to make sure we’re well aware of,” replied Kopasz. “If, all of a sudden, we start throwing in 25 percent dead animals, they’re going to see that and be like, ‘Well that’s not what we anticipated.’” 

While incidental amounts of animal waste are allowed within the MSW stream from the district, there has also been verbal guidance from the DEQ that the UPRSWDD can accept the bones, hide and head of an animal in their CD pit. The issue that continues to arise and present problems for the district has been what to do with the offal, primarily from the meat processors. 

“One of the things that Craig McOmie (DEQ) had sent me … was that the offal could be accepted as long as it came to the CD pit or the MSW trailer unrecognizable as liquid offal,” said UPRSWDD Chairman Randy Raymer. “So, if offal were to be broken somewhere onsite or composted down or broken and mixed with sawdust to become a paste of sorts. You can’t put any liquid in there that would pass through a paint filter.”

As discussion continued in regards to the composting, Stephenson clarified that the composting seminar he had attended in 2019 was based around composting a whole animal with a timeline of six to seven months. This led to UPRSWDD member Schelby Merrill proposing that the district run a pilot program to determine how long it would take for offal to break down with composting.

During the April 1 meeting, the district had been advised by Jody Weickart of the DEQ that any composting would need to be done in a roll-off container. Additionally, during the May meeting, Merrill’s husband, Cade, informed the board that it would be unrealistic for a processor to lift the barrels of offal to dump into the roll-off. This led to discussion during the workshop as to where a roll-off could be placed to allow for disposal of offal from the processors.

Following discussion about the layout of the Encampment site, in which roll-off dumpsters are placed next to elevated ground, board members believed a pilot program could be started in Encampment. While other roll-off dumpsters in use at both facilities are property of Munson, the roll-off used for the composting would be the property of the district. Following discussion between Kopasz and McOmie, it was advised that the purchase of a 30 yard roll-off dumpster could be added to the UPRSWDD’s landfill closure grant for Saratoga.

“I think by the time you put a pencil and a paper to the math of what we’re going to have to charge for that,” Raymer said, “The price is going to go up no matter what; whether we freight it or whether we compost it and whether it’s in Saratoga or here.”

“Let’s see how quickly it starts to decompose,” replied Merrill.

The current contract held by Munson will be amended for the start of a pilot program in composting offal at the Encampment site. The upcoming contracts for Saratoga and Encampment will include management of the composting with the district bearing the transportation costs. Due to bearing those costs, the revenue from recycling, which previously went to the contractor, would go to the district to offset transportation costs.

The next regular meeting of the Upper Platte River Solid Waste Disposal will be at 7 p.m. on June 3 at Saratoga Town Hall.