After 25 years of shipping household waste to Missoula, Lake County is bringing home its garbage.

That transition was celebrated June 13 with a groundbreaking at the county’s landfill on Kerr Dam Road, where Neumann Construction of Kalispell is building the first of three seven-acre cells, designed to safely hold household trash.

According to Stacey Kintigh, director of Lake County Solid Waste, the area should be ready to accept its first loads by December. The project will cost around $3.2 million, secured through two low-interest federal loans, but save the county close to $900,000 a year – the cost of transporting to and stashing garbage at Republic Services landfill in Missoula.

Those savings allow the county to continue providing waste management for the annual fee of $180, keep its six rural sites open, pay back the two loans and save money toward building the phase two of the project.

Kintigh emphasizes that on the surface local services won’t change at all. Household waste will still be delivered to the Lake County Transfer Station on North Reservoir Road, either by county residents or Republic Services, and all the rural collection sites will remain open.

What changes is that the garbage collected at the transfer station will travel a few miles west to Kerr Dam Road instead of 65 miles south to Missoula.

Currently, Lake County residents generate about 25,000 tons of garbage annually. At that rate, each new cell at the landfill is expected to last at least 10 years, although Kintigh is optimistic they’ll remain viable for 14 to 15 years. In total, the three cells will hold an estimated 925,000 tons of household trash and should serve the county’s waste needs for 30 or more years.

A perfect storm in reverse

During the recent groundbreaking, Kintigh praised the Lake County Commissioners for not taking the easy route and selling the landfill “for a one-time, short-term fiscal gain.”

“This really started with an important decision. And that decision revolved around the county remaining in control and possession of our waste management district,” he said. “It was not the short-term fix, but instead it put the community first with a long-term solution, financial stability, and services for the community for the foreseeable future.”

Commissioner Bill Barron noted that counties are not legally obliged to manage waste, and often leave that responsibility up to private companies. Lake County, on the other hand, has “always tried to take care of our own garbage because we feel like we can do it cheaper and more efficiently and save our taxpayers money.”

He described the process of bringing household waste back home as “a perfect storm in reverse – we just got the right people involved at the right time, in the right way.” Among those “right people” were Kintigh, who has urged the county to utilize the landfill for household waste since he took over the department a few years ago. Barron also credited the Solid Waste board and staff, county grant manager Billie Lee, and the county’s CFO Tara Barry, among others.

Building a Ziploc bag for garbage

Kintigh says the project underway right now entails installing three layers of impermeable liners “so there won't be any sort of risk to groundwater or the environment” and state-of-the-art monitoring wells to make sure there’s no leakage. The plan has been approved by the Department of Environmental Quality. “Every precaution is being taken,” Kintigh says.

In addition, a biodegradable clay-based substance will be sprayed over the top of the garbage daily. The substance helps prevent landfill fires, encapsulates odors, and its sticky texture discourages birds and rodents from trying to snack on the waste.

“In the end, it’s going to be like a big Ziploc bag, and everything will biodegrade inside of that bag,” says Kintigh.

Another component of the project is the addition of a new road into the landfill, inbound and outbound scales and a new booth so staff can track comings and goings.

To increase the lifespan of each cell, his department plans to emphasize recycling and diversion, so that waste that doesn’t belong in the landfill goes elsewhere. The county applied for a $3.6 million recycling grant last winter, and recently learned that the application has been moved ahead for merit review. Grant recipients will be announced by the end of the year.

If approved, the grant would allow the county to build a new easy-access recycling center at the Transfer Station, capable of processing a larger volume of material. The building would be constructed next to the scales, so that people who simply want to recycle won’t need to circle across the scales and through the Transfer Station to do so.   

Solid Waste board member Cynthia Forsch was an early proponent of recycling and says when the recycling center first opened 20 years ago at the Transfer Station she was its first customer.

“I'm very proud of the commissioners and of Stacey and the work that they've done to finance this,” she said. “I believe that we're on a sustainable trajectory with both solid waste and recycling in this county.”

“You don't hear a lot about garbage – it's just not a good topic to talk about, not a lot of fun,” said Barron. “But once you get into it, you really understand what a huge thing it is. And what we're doing right now is going to save a lot of money down the road for the taxpayers.”