A future for trash: County evaluates landfill options

How much garbage will Flathead County produce 100 years from now? And where will we put it all?

Those far-reaching questions are the focus of a new strategic plan for the Flathead County Landfill that maps out detailed options for trash disposal once the current landfill is filled in about 50 years.

One option is to build a new landfill at one of 10 potential sites that range from south of Lakeside to Plum Creek land east of Smith Lake.

Or the county could opt to send its trash by rail to bigger regional landfills in Great Falls or Missoula.

“Planning for 100 years is a monstrous thing,” County Public Works Director Dave Prunty said. “We don’t know what the technology will be, or if there will be conversion technology that will be cost-effective.”

The strategic plan was written over a two-year period by the California-based consulting firm, SWT Engineering. The county’s Solid Waste Board has spent the past eight months or so reviewing and tweaking the draft.

Now it’s the public’s turn to weigh in on the final draft and offer suggestions. If the Solid Waste Board and landfill administrators get citizen comments that have merit, “we’d work with the consultant to modify the plan,” Prunty said. The 98-page final draft is posted on the county’s website, flathead.mt.gov, under the Solid Waste Department; click on documents.

The plan focuses on the time frame between 2008 and 2108. By 2108 the county’s population is projected to be about 641,000 people, with close to 102,000 housing units. But socioeconomic conditions over the next century ultimately will determine how the Flathead grows, the consultants note. Affordable housing is a major factor in community growth, and if housing prices become out of reach for the middle- and low-income classes, more multi-dwelling housing complexes will be built. That in itself affects the flow of solid waste.

In 100 years the county could produce as much as 804,000 tons of annual refuse. That’s close to eight times the amount in 2008 when 111,064 tons were disposed.

The plan outlines 10 future sites for a new landfill, but recommends that the best candidate is a site directly west of the current landfill. It would encompass about 571 acres, including areas for refuse disposal, ancillary facilities and buffer areas from surrounding properties. The area would be excavated in phases, with a total excavation of 42.5 million cubic yards.

Many of the sites reviewed were found to be poor landfill prospects for a variety of reasons, from significant neighborhood development to questionable ground geometry.

A summary of other site evaluations includes:

n Stoltze North, about four miles east of Whitefish. Access would be onto Edgewood Drive or Trumbull Canyon Road.

n Strategic Holdings, two miles south of Lakeside. Access would be onto Blacktail Heights Road or Angel Point Road.

n Mountain Eagle Holdings, three miles south of Lakeside. Access would be onto Blacktail Heights Road.

n Plum Creek (west of Smith Lake), 14 miles southwest of current landfill on U.S. 2. Access would be onto Haywire Gulch Road, via Big Horn Drive.

n Stoltze Southwest, five miles off U.S. 93 in West Valley area. Access would be off Four Mile Drive.

n Stoltze West, seven miles off U.S. 93, also in West Valley. Access would be off Rhodes Draw, which is accessible from Farm to Market Road.

n Tutvedt T, in central portion of Flathead County. Access would be off Stillwater Road.

n Sky-Air, south of current landfill. Access would be off West Spring Creek Road.

Even though the current landfill is good for another 50 years, the county has to look at buying land while it’s still fairly affordable, Prunty said.

“If we want to buy ground, now’s a good time,” he said, adding that if the property weren’t eventually needed for a new landfill the county would have an asset that could be resold.

Hauling garbage by rail to other Montana landfills or out-of-state facilities could be a possibility 100 years from now. Consultants looked at the feasibility of a waste-by-rail operation and outlined four potential routes: eastbound along the High Line to Shelby, then south to Great Falls; eastbound to Shelby and south to Laurel; south to the Missoula landfill; and a more complicated route that would go west to Spokane and then return to a landfill outside Helena.

If the Flathead’s solid waste were shipped out of state, Washington or Oregon would be likely recipients.

“The rail infrastructure to facilitate a waste-by-rail operation is sufficient,” the plan acknowledges, “however, due to the length which the refuse must travel and potentially high capital costs for intermodal facilities and equipment, this waste-management option is significantly more costly than current waste-management practices.”

The plan additionally looks at current recycling trends, lays out a strategy for green-box collection sites and delves into existing conversion technology, a wide array of thermal, biological, chemical and mechanical technologies capable of converting garbage into useful projects such as natural gas or biodiesel.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.