Trash site taking shape

New Weston landfill could be ready by fall, board member says

While there is no official date yet for the new landfill opening, construction is underway, Weston County officials said.

Mike Mills, a Weston County Solid Waste District board member since 2018, said in a phone interview with the News Letter Journal on April 20 that, in a perfect-world scenario, the landfill may open as soon as this fall.

Newcastle Public Works supervisor Greg Stumpff confirmed that while he doesn’t know when the new landfill will open, construction has begun. He said in an email on April 18 that the new landfill is located south on U.S. Highway 85, about 2 miles past the current turnoff for the city landfill, which is at 355 Old Highway 85.

Factors that influenced the selection of the site included the soil type, distance from other properties and cost, according to Mills, who explained that he could only speak as an individual board member, and not on behalf of the full board. The 160-acre site now has an access road and a 5-acre-wide, 100-foot-deep pit in the ground, he said. This summer’s construction season should advance the progress.

“We’re doing everything we can to get moved forward,” he said.

How long the landfill will be operational depends on factors such as what products will be accepted and whether the county makes any trade deals that involve the landfill, Mills said. But based on an estimate that the first pit should last 12 years, the entire landfill might last 289 years, he said.

Transfer stations, where people can drop off items for the landfill, are in progress in Upton and Osage, he said.

At this point, officials have not decided what to charge residents to use the landfill because they don’t yet know what the final costs to open and operate the facility will be.

Officials are also considering whether it makes financial sense to run recycling and composting programs, with no fees, like the city of Newcastle has, he said.

Stumpff said in his email on April 18 that the city’s Landfill No. 2 will close shortly after the Weston County Solid Waste District’s landfill opens, so there is no specific closure date. In May 2023, the News Letter Journal reported that Stumpff said the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality asked the city to keep its landfill open to service the area until the new one opened.

The city has completed plans for the closure but still needs to build the bid package and bid the project after the landfill closes. The city plans to borrow money from the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality State Revolving Fund Clean Water program to pay for its portion of the closure, Stumpff said.

Stumpff said, too, that the city missed the window for applying for funding for the 2025 construction year because it was unsure of the closure date when the application process closed. The city will apply for funding in early 2025 to complete the closure in the 2026 construction season. He plans to have the closure plans up to date and the bid documents complete by the end of 2024 so that the city has over a year to bid the project and begin construction in 2026.

“One of the biggest concerns with the closure of our landfill is the cost of the closure and the effect on customers’ bills. I can only speculate on the cost of the closure right now. The closure plan was completed in 2021, and the cost analysis was completed then,” Stumpff said. “With inflation changes we have seen throughout, our public works budget would indicate that the cost from 2021 is low. We will have to reevaluate the cost of the closure and prepare then.”

He said that another concern about the closure is the city’s expenses. The city will no longer face landfill operating costs, but there’s a trade-off: the tipping fee.

“We will be paying a tipping fee to the new landfill like everyone else,” Stumpff said.  “We do not know what the tipping fee will be yet.”

Stumpff said the city hired Carl Brown of GettingGreatRates.com to analyze garbage, water and sewer rates.

“We have talked quite a bit about the two landfill projects, as well as the fiscal effects of the closure,” Stumpff said. “This person is helping us determine the monthly rate with some assumptions for the missing information, such as the tipping fee and the cost of the landfill closure.”

The News Letter Journal tried contacting the Weston County Solid Waste District board chairman Ed Wagoner on April 18 and 19 via phone but received no response.