Commission asked to re-open county landfill

Whether it is feasible for the the Dale County Commission to reopen the Dale County Landfill will be further researched.

That was the suggestion of Dale County Commission Chairman Steve McKinnon after a request by Ozark Mayor Mark Blankenship to reopen the landfill which has been “mothballed” for six years.

The Dale County Landfill, located at Bivins Drive, off of County Road 30 five miles south of Ozark, was “mothballed” after the commission heard a report from a consultant in 2015 who outlined options for closing the Dale County Construction and Demolition Landfill.

The commission had retained a consultant in hopes to eliminate the financial losses currently incurred by the county in operating the landfill. At that time, they expressed interest in the option that called for cutting the landfill’s hours of operation to a minimal level.  “You don’t get out of the landfill business, but you restrict the hours of operation,” the consultant had advised them at a February 2015 commission meeting. “You restrict operating hours so 98 percent of the time there’s nobody at the site, the gates are closed and you don’t have to have equipment there for anything except to respond to an emergency. You eliminate a lot of your expenses.”

At a Level Plains City Council meeting in December 2015, McKinnon explained to the council that “mothballing” the county landfill was a less expensive option for the county. “It costs about $100,000 a year for a permanent closure,” McKinnon said at that time.

“I feel a little awkward making this presentation because I was the one to make the presentation asking y’all to close the landfill,” Blankenship, who had been the Dale County Commission Chairman at the time the county landfill was mothballed.

“When (the commission) closed it we were losing $39,039 a year on an average of four years. The economy was bad. There wasn’t a lot of activity and that’s one of the reasons we made the recommendation but at that same time we said we would revisit the landfill operation and that’s the reason we mothballed it instead of closing it down all together,” Blankenship said. “We feel like the economy has turned around to the point that we need to relook at that.”

Blankenship asked the commission to consider reopening the county landfill Mondays through Thursdays. “We’re seeing more and more construction in Ozark and in the Oct. 1 budget, we’ve increased our demolition budget in the city from $20,000 to $100,000,” he said. “The problem the city of Ozark is having is we have so far to commute going to Rose Hill.”

Besides the county owned “mothballed” landfill, the only other landfill in Dale County is the Rose Hill Landfill in Midland City which was owned by Dale County Commissioner Charles “Chic” Gary until February of this year when he sold it to Mark Dunning Industries.

“At the time we did the mothballing, the main reason that we did it was because we couldn’t afford to close it,” Gary reminded Blankenship. “It would have cost over $1 million to do so and we didn’t have the money so we had to mothball it, that was our best option out.

“That option now is still viable,” Gary added. “Plus we don’t have space over there. I don’t think we’ve got enough place for another cell. I haven’t seen (enough space) and I’ve been over there excessively— all over that place.

“I just don’t think the county can go into it with an option that we are going to make money with it,” Gary said. “I don’t think we can survive opening it back up unless we go across the creek over there spending an enormous amount of money to bring that into operation. I just don’t see it.”

“I don’t remember space being an issue when we closed it—it was financial,” Blankenship replied. “I still have the presentation that we made and we had no discussion about running out of room at that time.”

“I’ve been out there,” Gary said. “If we start taking material in, there’s no space left in that cell anywhere to accept it. Space is limited there now.”

Gary asked Dale County Engineer Derek Brewer his opinion about reopening the county landfill. Brewer said he did not have exact figures with him at that meeting but would get them to the commissioners. “What this body has to decide is do you want to offer landfill service to the public,” he said. “If you decide you want to do it, we’ll find a way to make it happen but you’re talking about $200,000 to run that landfill.”

Brewer pointed out that the county is paying Wiregrass Rehabilitation Center $10,000 a month for trash pick along the county roadsides. “We can do one or the other but we can’t do both,” he said.

“The WRC expense can be adjusted,” Gary said. “The equipment you have is out of service, also, right?” he asked Brewer.

“Absolutely,” Brewer replied.

“So you’re looking at operational expense up front,” Gary said. “A new dozier costs $425,000 plus— plus a scraper. It would be extremely expensive to put Dale County back in the landfill business, just from equipment cost alone.”

Blankenship said Henry County operates their landfill with 1,080 tons a year and Geneva County operates theirs with 2,000 tons a year. “I think the residents of Dale County deserve to have a landfill back open,” he said.

McKinnon suggested that he and Brewer research the exact cost of reopening the landfill and the exact amount of available space there and report back to the commission.

The next meeting of the Dale County Commission is Sept. 14 at 10 a.m. in the government building in Ozark. A work session begins at 10 a.m. and is followed immediately by a voting meeting.