Waste Plan Draws Fire At Hearing Neighbors Unhappy About Proposal To Build Transfer Station In North Kootenai County

County leaders got an earful Thursday night from north Kootenai County residents who think a planned solid waste transfer station is pure garbage.

About 45 people attended the public hearing conducted by a Kootenai County hearing examiner for the proposed 61-acre transfer station, 11 miles north of Coeur d’Alene on Ramsey Road.

“My property is measured in feet from this project,” neighbor Russ McCaslin said. “I spent six years building a home for my family and I have three minutes to defend it.”

Only the solid waste director and project engineers spoke in favor. The rest were either neutral or steaming mad.

“My wife and family moved from Portland to get away from exactly what is proposed here,” said Doyle Whitney, who lives near the proposed site. “Who is going to want to buy property next to a dump?”

Steve Wulf, the county’s solid waste director, explained that a transfer station is simply where trash is collected, sorted and packed onto trucks headed for the Fighting Creek landfill near Rockford Bay. Recyclable material would be separated out.

Wulf said the new station, which would be built just like the one on Ramsey Road in Coeur d’Alene, would allow the county to eliminate three sites where residents dump their trash into Dumpsters.

The county hopes to build the station with $2 million set aside from collection fees. It would enable the county to eventually ship waste by rail to other landfills.

Wulf also said counties in central Washington and Montana are interested in sending garbage to Kootenai County for loading onto trains at the proposed facility.

“We have 40 years of landfill left at current use,” Wulf said. “We will need some other options in the future for handling waste.”

Hearing examiner Gary Young is expected to give written recommendations to the Kootenai County Commission within two weeks. The commission could hold another hearing before deciding.

In 1999, the Ramsey Road station accepted 185,000 tons of waste, 110,000 tons of which were sent to Fighting Creek. The northern Dumpsters contribute about 20,000 tons of waste a year.

It costs the county about $550,000 a year to collect the trash at three different Dumpster locations in the north part of the county.

The new transfer station would eliminate that cost and problems with the Dumpsters. Though designed for household waste, Wulf has pages of abuse detailing how people have left everything from furniture and tires to waste chemicals from making methamphetamine.

“We’re building it for the people out there,” Wulf said of the new facility, as the crowd jeered in response. “Oh, please,” one woman gasped.

“We are compassionate about your concerns. I wish there was an ideal property out there where nobody would be impacted,” Wulf said. “We looked.”

At one potential site, the landowner asked $2.5 million. The proposed 61 acres would cost $245,000, but won’t be purchased until the county gets necessary permits and rail access.

Wulf said the engineers would include berms and trees to both hide the site and to keep noise down.

However, the major hurdle would come from roads. The main road to the facility would be Chilco Road. That road, along with many others in the area, would need huge upgrades to handle heavy truck traffic all year.

Wulf said the solid waste department would ask the Kootenai County Commission to negotiate with the Lakes Highway District to decide how to pay for the work, which could cost several million dollars.

Jim Norvell, who owns a business on the other side of U.S. Highway 95, said the current roads can’t handle that much traffic.

“It’s us, the people, who will pay for that road work,” he said.