At the urging of municipalities, Portage County is keeping its options open when it comes to solid waste disposal.
While continuing with plans to build a transfer station and haul waste to Winnebago County, the county will purchase a town of Stockton parcel it had been studying as a site for a new county-operated landfill. The 154-acre Burling property is across Highway QQ from the current landfill.
On a 24-3 vote, the Portage County Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday to purchase the Burling property as an insurance policy should plans to haul local waste out of the county go awry. The county's option to purchase the parcel would have expired Sunday, Nov. 26. The purchase price is $424,000.
While Portage County owns the current landfill, the municipalities are the ones that pay the haulers who collect their residents' trash and then pay the tipping fees at the landfill, municipal leaders told the County Board.
"We are the very local people that pick up the garbage, so we would encourage you to buy that land," said Town of Hull Chairman John Holdridge.
Stevens Point Mayor Gary Wescott said the county should reserve the Burling property as future insurance. Stevens Point, the town of Hull and the villages of Plover and Whiting, which have 48,000 of the county's residents, all support exercising the purchase option.
Supervisors James Gifford, John Rendall and Ron Borski voted against the purchase. Borski's district covers most of the town of Stockton and he is the town chairman.
Surrounding residents had been led to believe the landfill would be closed, said Gifford.
"Now we're asking these people to be on hold (with their property concerns for another 15 years)," Gifford said.
Christy Weseloh, who lives near the landfill, said the existing landfill has been a nuisance because of noise, litter and traffic and a possible future landfill will be a "black cloud" hanging over the neighbors. The Burling property is zoned residential transition and the town would lose tax revenue if it were to become a landfill, instead of developed residentially.
"Our homes and our land is the buffer (around the landfill and Burling property). There is no other buffer," Weseloh said.
James Zach, citizen member of the Solid Waste Management Board and a town of Stockton resident, said purchasing the Burling property isn't a good insurance policy.
Building a new small- to medium-sized county landfill is a 1980s solution to waste disposal in the 21st Century, Zach said. Just as town dumps are a thing of the past, small county landfills are going away as counties (like Winnebago, Outagamie and Brown) are forming intergovernmental, regional solid waste programs.