The county’s solid waste transfer station is now up and running.
Southern Central Waste Services, LLC of McMinnville began operating the new transfer station last Wednesday, February 15.
Although the county’s landfill remains open it is close to capacity and except for commercial solid waste all other county garbage is now coming to the transfer station. The facility is currently accepting waste from the county’s convenience sites, schools, and City of Smithville, etc and will begin taking waste next month from commercial services like Waste Management which picks up garbage from local businesses and factories and pays tipping fees to the county. The county wanted to give prior notice to those services because there will be a change in the rates they pay for dumping garbage at the transfer station versus the landfill.
“The transfer station is running right now through the end of February for county trash. That’s trash which is picked up at the convenience sites, City of Smithville, schools, etc. March 1 we will begin with commercial tipping. That’s for those who pay such as Waste Management. We wanted to send them a letter ahead of time. The commercial accounts are still being dumped at the landfill until March 1. They will then go to the transfer station,” said County Mayor Tim Stribling.
The county commission last month voted to enter into a three year contract with Southern Central Waste Services to operate the transfer station which is located behind Tenneco Automotive.
Under terms of the agreement, SCWS will provide operation of the transfer station, hauling, and disposal of DeKalb County’s household garbage at the Rhea County Landfill in Dayton, Tennessee, which is operated by Santec Environmental Inc.
“The bid was for SCWS to operate the transfer station; to provide two employees; a scale operator; an equipment operator; to furnish the equipment to load the trucks; to pay all utilities at the transfer station; and to do the transfer station billing. The county will receive all proceeds from tipping fees of other vendors who use the transfer station,” said County Mayor Stribling.
“The only thing DeKalb County does is we dump it and they operate the machinery, scoop it, load it into a truck, and its hauled to a different landfill. All trucks are weighed when they come in and they are weighed when they go out so we know what tons are dumped. They are taking it to Rhea County. They are supplying two people, a scale operator and equipment operator,” County Mayor Stribling continued.
The county is paying the following rates to SCWS based on incoming weights:
*Up to 1,000 tons per month: $55 per ton
*1001 to 1250 tons per month: $54 per ton
*1251 to 1500 tons per month: $53 per ton
*1501 or more tons per month: $51 per ton.
Original plans were for the county to operate the transfer station itself and to ship the garbage to Smith County for disposal at $29 per ton but County Mayor Stribling said he and others found that it was cheaper to contract the service to a private company.
Until the landfill is filled to capacity, County Mayor Stribling said it will remain open for dumping of construction debris and other Class III waste.
“The engineer says we need to fill it (landfill) up a little more. This cell is pretty much at its maximum, but we need to fill it up and what we will be doing is taking construction debris and that type material to the landfill,” Stribling concluded.