Transfer station work begins

The Kootenai County Commission broke ground Monday for a $12 million garbage transfer station intended to serve the fastest-growing area of the county.

The garbage drop-off, expected to open next fall, might also become the new workplace for commission Chairman Gus Johnson. Voters booted Johnson from office in May, leaving him unemployed starting in January.

“I may apply for a job with solid waste,” Johnson said after he and the other commissioners used gold-painted shovels to turn over chunks of the frozen field off Pleasant View Road and Prairie Avenue. “Just as a worker, not a manager.”

Solid Waste Director Roger Saterfiel said Johnson, a former Kaiser Aluminum worker and Post Falls mayor, is welcome to apply but he’s not guaranteed a job. Saterfiel added that he’s already promoted Sam Cook to manage the new transfer station when it opens and that he has the budget to hire 21 employees. Cook is assistant manager of the Ramsey Road transfer station.

“Gus would have to work his way up through the ranks just like myself and everyone else,” Saterfiel said. “He won’t be shown any preference.”

Johnson wouldn’t say what other job opportunities he’s exploring. Yet during the ceremony he noted that the groundbreaking was likely one of his last public acts. Johnson and Commissioner Katie Brodie, who also lost her re-election bid, leave office Jan. 5.

Johnson was a new commissioner when the county proposed building the transfer station near Garwood, causing uproar by locals. Neighbors formed RAFT – Regional Alternatives for Trash – and rallied to denounce the detrimental impact and the cost of local roads. The group wanted the transfer station in an industrial area near Hauser.

And that’s exactly what happened. After months of debate, the county commission in 2001 voted to find another site.

That new site is the 68 acres in the industrial area with an asphalt plant and aluminum recycler as neighbors. It also has 3,700 feet of rail line access in case the county ever has to ship garbage in the next 20 years to preserve the life of the Fighting Creek landfill south of Coeur d’Alene on U.S. Highway 95.

When the county applied for a zoning change from agricultural to industrial, only two neighbors opposed the idea.

“This is going to be the perfect spot,” Johnson said, adding it’s in the fastest growing area near Post Falls, Hauser and Rathdrum.

This will become the county’s second garbage drop-off, twice the size of the Ramsey station, which is so heavily used that it is near failure.

The Ramsey station is designed for a peak of about 150 tons of garbage per day and about 250 users.

The station averages 550 tons per day, and on some days the amount soars to 1,000 tons. That means anywhere from 900 to 1,700 people per day use the facility, Saterfiel said.

The county’s soaring population has brought the increase in trash.

In 2004, the amount of garbage taken to the Fighting Creek Landfill south of Coeur d’Alene increased by 36 million pounds, which is the equivalent weight of about 13,333 passenger cars. A total of 272 million pounds of garbage went to the landfill.

The county landfill is expected to last until 2037, but that’s based on a much slower growth rate than what Kootenai County is experiencing. That’s why Saterfiel said the rail link is so important.

The new transfer station will sit on top of the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer, which is the source of drinking water for more than 500,000 people.

Saterfiel said the facility will be lined and use a concrete that doesn’t allow water to penetrate.

Also, trucks will haul the trash from the transfer station to the landfill every day, so the garbage never sits longer than 24 hours.

The transfer station is near the BNSF Railway refueling depot, where fuel-tainted wastewater leaked into the ground. The railroad spent $10 million on repairs, including a rubberized coating atop the concrete.

Saterfiel said the difference is the transfer station deals with solids, not liquid. And any liquid, such as rainwater, is absorbed by the trash and doesn’t run off, he said.

Yet some people, including Post Falls Mayor Clay Larkin and the Kootenai Environmental Alliance, have raised questions about putting a transfer station over the aquifer. Neither Larkin nor the conservation spokesman was available for comment.

The new facility won’t increase taxes because the money comes from the $88 annual residential landfill fee.