| Column 8/13/03 Siskiyou County’s
Solid Waste Department is running in the red…deep in the red. To put it bluntly,
annual County expenses now exceed annual revenue by more than $300,000. Conservative
estimates are that this annual revenue/expenditure gap will most likely increase by at
least 9% each year, although actual experience over the past few years has averaged a 25%
increase.
All together, Siskiyou County has eight solid waste operations. The
County contracts to haul garbage from outlying areas such as Somes Bar, Salmon River and
Tennant. In addition, the County will have four “transfer stations” located in Mt.
Shasta, McCloud, Happy Camp and Tulelake,
These are facilities where individuals and commercial haulers deposit their garbage on a
concrete slab at a facility, rather than dumping on dirt to be covered by an awaiting
bulldozer. The garbage at the facility is then transferred to a truck and transported to
an environmentally approved lined landfill, such as the dumps in Medford, Oregon or Anderson,
California.
Yreka is the only landfill in the county that has not been closed or
in the process of closing. It is jointly owned
by the County and the City of Yreka and currently operated by the City. Costs are now
shared according to the volume of garbage. (Contributions from County sources now run
around a 60% average of the whole.) The full cost of operating Yreka landfill runs about
$1,100,000 a year. These costs do not include the additional $500,000 bill already paid
for consultants involved in lawsuits, Environmental Impact Reports and relicensing
processes. Nor do they include the additional $100,000 bill for consultants expected this
year.
The Yreka landfill is unlined. The North Coast Regional Water Quality
Control Board has stated a goal of closing any remaining unlined landfills in the north
state.
A few years ago, the California Integrated Waste Board determined
that the fill that had commenced in one unlined cell was out of compliance with
regulations. This has created an expensive problem. There is now a requirement to line
this and future cells if they are to be utilized for fill. This would be a costly option.
However, the entire landfill site spans about 462 total acres and only about 40 acres have
actually received waste. It has been estimated that, if lined, the site has the physical
capacity to last until 2068.
A proposal is under consideration to close the Yreka landfill over a
two year period, to be replaced by a transfer station. The estimated annual cost of such a
facility would be $800,000 in comparison with the $1,100,000 annual expense for the
current landfill operation. This cost estimate includes debt service on a 30 year loan,
transfer station operations, hauling to Medford, landfill acceptance fees, and monitoring
costs for the closed landfill. This presumes that the Yreka dump will remain open as a
“trickle” facility, allowing onsite deposit of heavy inert materials such as
concrete or asphalt.
An analysis by the Siskiyou County Solid Waste Department indicates
that as of 18 months ago, it became more cost effective to construct a transfer station to
handle the waste stream than to continue to operate the Yreka landfill.
Various options will continue to be examined and analyzed early this
fall by both the County and the City of Yreka. This may include having County waste pass
through a transfer station and having the City continue to operate the landfill for its
own waste stream. In any event, there is considerable urgency to make a change to halt the
growing budget deficits in this department without increasing taxes or fees.
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