Town Plans To Run Its Own Transfer Station
by Alex Brooks
The Petersburgh Town Board held a workshop meeting on Friday December 4 to discuss the possibility of running its own transfer station rather than paying rent to Berlin for the use of its station. The idea has been floated a number of times in recent years as Petersburgh’s garbage costs have steadily risen, and was last seriously considered when Zeegie Krahforst was Supervisor. The issue has come up at this time because the contract with Berlin expires at the end of this month, and Berlin has asked for an increase in rent, from $700 a month to $1,000 a month. Also this year the prices of recycled materials have fallen, so the revenue which the transfer station was generating has been reduced, increasing the overall garbage cost for both Berlin and Petersburgh.
Petersburgh’s 2021 budget appropriates $80,000 for expenses related to garbage handling, and anticipates $42,000 in revenue, so if those numbers are accurate projections of the actual revenue and expense that the Town would see if it continued to use the Berlin transfer station, the Town’s net garbage cost for the coming year would be $38,000.
In 2019, the last year for which actual figures are available, the Town’s net garbage cost was $30,000, and in 2020 the net cost is reported to be higher than that because of reduced recycling revenue. Some have called these sums unacceptable considering that more than half the households in the Town have County Waste pick up their garbage and don’t use the transfer station.
Although projecting the cost of a new transfer station which is not yet up and running is a somewhat inexact science, the figures presented by Councilman Jack Barnhill suggested that running its own transfer station could cost the Town as little as a few thousand dollars or as much as $12,000 in annual net garbage cost, but under just about any scenario, it would save the Town a significant amount of money compared to using the Berlin transfer station.
Barnhill proposed setting up the new transfer station temporarily behind the Town Hall, using the old school bus garage as the attendant’s office. He said that structure would need some work to convert it to the new purpose, but he volunteered to donate his services to frame up the attendant’s office and put in the new door. He estimated the cost of setting up the new transfer station at about $6,000, most of which is for fencing, and the remainder for some new lighting and the building materials.
He presented several possibilities for the monthly cost of garbage pickups, depending on how frequently it is picked up, but the most likely seems to be to have garbage picked up weekly while C&D and recyclables were picked up monthly. He said there would be two 8 yard dumpsters for trash, a 30 yard (enclosed) dumpster for recyclables, and a 30 yard dumpster for construction and demolition waste (C&D). The cost for this scenario would be $1,250 monthly, or $15,000 annually. He suggested hiring an attendant 15 hours a week at $12 per hour, which suggests a basic annual operating cost of about $26,000.
The Town currently sells 300 transfer station permits annually, which generates about $7,500, and over 9,000 garbage tickets annually, which generates over $18,500 in revenue. If these numbers stayed the same with the new station in operation, the revenue would be enough to pay the basic annual operating cost of the station.
But many uncertainties remain. The Town won’t know until it begins operating the station how all the details will work out. The volume of waste brought to the station might be more or less than anticipated, which would make both costs and revenues either higher or lower than anticipated. But Barnhill said even if nobody uses the station and very few garbage tickets are sold, “we would still save money.”
Barnhill and Tom Berry both said the location behind the Town Hall is intended to be temporary, and they would seek a permanent site somewhere else near the middle of Town. This might lead to a rent payment or bond payment to cover the cost of acquiring and setting up the new site.
Towards the end of the conversation, Heinz Noeding said his best guess is that the Town will save twenty to thirty thousand dollars per year by running its own transfer station.
Barnhill said initially the new station would handle garbage, recycling, C&D, and metals (the Highway Department already has a metals recycling dumpster which can be used by the transfer station also) but more research has to be done to set it up to take specialty waste like electronics, batteries, white goods and tires. He said he expects that the station will be able to accept these kinds of waste, but it might not be able to do so when it first opens.
The Board seemed to be in favor of setting up the new transfer station, but it did not take a vote on the matter. They will probably make that decision at the regular Town Board meeting on December 21. The Board was not sure what permit might be needed from the State, but Barnhill said he would look into that the following Monday. By press time Barnhill didn’t yet have full information, but he said registering the station with State solid waste authorities appeared to be a fairly simple and quick process. The Board wasn’t settled on just when the new station would open, but if it was voted to go ahead with it just before Christmas, it would probably take at least a month to get it set up and ready to accept waste. Supervisor Dennis Smith said he would contact Berlin and try to work something out about when Petersburgh would stop paying rent for use of Berlin’s station and start handling its own waste.