By GENE KEMMETER
of The Gazette
Area municipalities are wondering why the Portage County Solid Waste Management Board is taking over control of the waste stream in the county.
The board decided on Oct. 4 not to purchase property for a new landfill and began researching construction of a transfer station to take the county's refuse to a public landfill in the Fox Valley.
But the board's decision may have voted itself out of existence. The board was created in the 1980s when the county decided to construct a landfill after area municipalities were having difficulty finding suitable landfills to handle their refuse. The board was then put in charge of operating the landfill and later the recycling program.
The municipalities wanted a local landfill because of problems with other landfills, including assessments for liability for cleanup costs from private landfills such as Mid-State Landfill near Stratford and Holz-Krause in Wausau. Municipalities and businesses were assessed for hazardous materials in those landfills even though they may not have disposed of them.
Town of Hull Chairman John Holdridge isn't pleased by the county's latest action, particularly since it lacked input from the users of the landfill, the municipalities that take garbage to the landfill and recycling materials to the recycling center.
"I'm just not happy with the way this was handled," Holdridge said. "There are other municipal leaders who aren't happy about this either."
Stevens Point Mayor Gary Wescott agrees. "There's a growing concern about the decision Solid Waste made," he said. "There's questions about the future direction."
One question he said, is whether the county has the authority to make future contracts for solid waste from the municipalities.
"Liability questions remain after the garbage goes outside the county," Wescott said, and the municipalities need to decide where they want to take that solid waste.
City Attorney Louis Molepske said the city's contract with the county for solid waste envisions the landfill in the county, not elsewhere, and ends in a couple of years. Once the county closes its landfill, the city would have to decide whether it wants to ship its solid waste for a 150-to 200-mile round trip, he said.
Holdridge said this is the second time the county has acted for municipalities without municipalities providing input. He called the creation of the Portage County Business Park the first instance.
"The Solid Waste Board doesn't pick up any of the garbage. We pick up garbage and take it to the landfill and they decide what to do with it," he said.
Holdridge said the municipalities still have the garbage but the county needs to reconnect with them to find out the needs of municipalities. The county talked extensively with the town of Stockton, where the landfill is located, and Winnebago County, where the county would like to transfer the refuse. "The other side of this affects a great deal of people in Portage County."
"I would hope they would reconsider this decision until they talk with municipalities," he said, noting that 45 percent of the waste comes from households, with about half of that coming from Stevens Point and a substantial part of the rest from Plover and the town of Hull.
"I think they have to clarify just what they've done," he said. "For whatever reason, we've been on the sidelines in this process."
Holdridge said government needs to communicate. "I hope when we make decisions we have everyone's viewpoint in there. There needs to be trust and a relationship between people and the different bodies," he said.