Published: June 14, 2008 09:04 pm      

Oak Ridge wins OK to import solid waste

City, county approve bid to accept municipal, industrial material from neighboring states

Oak Ridge Recycling and Disposal Facility has obtained the approvals it was looking for to begin taking in out-of-state trash.

“As you look at today’s economy and what goes on, we have become a more mobile economy,” said Terry Beasy, district manager for both the Oak Ridge facility and Liberty Landfill in White County. “... We now service a customer base that’s even farther ranging. The area of the local community has grown beyond local.”

Dick Hettinger, the director of the Cass County Solid Waste District, said the Solid Waste Advisory Board had given its support for the request, which was approved in April by the Cass County commissioners. It also met with the unanimous approval of the Logansport Board of Public Works and Safety this month.

Beasy appeared at the meeting to present the petition from Waste Management of Indiana for an amendment to the host community agreement to allow the facility to accept solid waste from communities and businesses outside of Indiana. As with the previous approvals, there was little discussion before the measure was approved.

In the request, Beasy said the facility on Morgan Hill Road south of Logansport anticipated no additional truck traffic. However, Beasy did state that the facility expects to increase its annual income from tipping fees.

“It will allow us to take in more tons, and as the tipping fees are paid by the ton, we’ll increase our take on the tipping fees,” he said.

The request stipulates that the landfill will accept only solid municipal and industrial waste from states that share a border with Indiana.

Beasy said that all industrial waste would be regulated by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to ensure that it’s safe.

“It’s considered industrial waste because of its industrial origin but it’s tested for consistency to make sure there are no hidden surprises,” Beasy said.

Waste Management started the process to accept out-of-state trash to service is regional customers and to boost its monthly trash intake, which has dropped since the company lost the city’s trash removal contract in 2000. Lisa Disbrow, a spokesperson for Waste Management, said the loss of the contract was not the direct reason for the move to accept out-of-state trash.

“We want to attract more volume to the facility, but I would not say the loss of that contract triggered this,” she said. “The reasoning was that we have some potential customers that would like to have all of their trash brought to the same facility. They do business at another location that is contiguous to Indiana and this will allow them to have all of their trash hauled to the same facility.”

After Waste Management lost the city contract, Oak Ridge took in trash for several years from Liberty Landfill in Monticello, which is also owned by Waste Management, while that facility went through some restructuring.

Waste Management has twice bid to regain the city’s contract, most recently in December 2006, but both times the contract was awarded to other entities. Wabash Valley, which has the city’s trash contract until 2010 , hauls the trash it collects to a landfill in Wabash.

Though Oak Ridge, which was previously known as Byers Landfill, does receive some trash from Logansport, the current intake at the facility is roughly a third of what it was while Waste Management provided curbside trash service in the city.

“I think what they’re trying to do is to make more revenue,” Hettinger said. “I think that definitely is the bottom line.”

Now that it has the final go-ahead, Beasy said Oak Ridge can begin taking in out-of-state trash immediately. Separately, the facility is still waiting to hear from IDEM regarding permits for an expansion of the facility.

Although the two issues aren’t immediately related, Beasy said the expansion in both facility size and customer base deal with an expanding local economy.

“When you buy something, a piece of furniture, that was made out of state, it creates trash there and here,” he said. “... So what really ends up happening as people spread the manufacturing base, facilities like ours serve an even larger region. We’re trying to expand our business to what we consider to be local.”

Carla Knapp can be contacted at (574) 732-5150 or via e-mail at carla.knapp@pharostribune.com