Commissioners updated on transfer station

At the July 20 Hot Springs County Commissioners meeting, Town Engineer Heath Overfield and members of the Thermopolis Town Council attended to give a transfer station project update at the request of the commissioners.

Overfield reported that they had a work session at Town Hall in April going through the details and took the commissioners’ suggestions. Based on that work, Overfield updated some cost estimates and looked at the timelines on the town’s end of things for the transition from the landfill to the transfer station. 

Overfield also tried to talk to WYDOT for several weeks about the highway widening at the entrance to transfer station road and they did not return his calls. However, Overfield had another project in the Worland and Basin area and was able to talk about the transfer station highway access with WYDOT people there. Overfield said he wanted to know their timing of a highway mill and overlay and get a lane added around the same time. Overfield said that they had some positive ideas from that discussion. It will either be a separate project or done at the same time of their work. Overfield added a line item to their “moving target budget” for that work. According to Overfield, from an aerial view there is enough room to add the lane. He said, “I think it will work out fine.”

The next step Overfield called Craig McComie, a DEQ landfill remediation, cease and transfer program supervisor. McComie does permitting coordination and manages project budgets. Overfield talked about getting an application together to start looking for funding to move the project ahead. Overfield said, “In that discussion we covered a couple of things. One, was working with the solid waste district up in Worland to talk about tipping fees to see if they can negotiate a lower rate, to sit them down at a table and help them understand that if we are bringing all this waste from Thermopolis and spreading their costs out, it could lower the rates for all of their users.” Overfield plans on getting a meeting set up to discuss that more. He also added that they will try to work things out with Worland with or without the transfer station for handling waste and having a good rate with them.

The following step Overfield discussed was the timing of the transfer station and or the closure of the Thermopolis landfill. The current landfill permit expires in June 2023. Also, the town is moving into their last cell of the landfill this month. Normally one cell lasts between two and three years before completely filling up. Overfield said they are anticipating this cell will last until the end of their permit. McComie cautioned Overfield to not rush the application, get the funding in place now, have the project built next summer and then have a year left in the landfill when they could be filling it with solid waste. Once a landfill is closed, they have to bring the land up to its design finished grade. So, if there is a cell not completely full, they must fill it with dirt. Overfield said, “There is no point in shortening our timeline.”

McComie’s suggestion to the town for their application getting started is to continue working their cost estimates and play with the timeline so they can apply for the funding. Overfield said, “In the next six to eight months they want to apply before the next legislature just in case there is some big hiccup and they’re funding is shortened. Applying at the end of this year will give us our money in 2022, get that project designed and started. And, it will be ready some time in early 2023 if that is the route we end up going.” Then the transition from the landfill to the transfer station will potentially occur in 2023 as they are filling up the last cell in the landfill. It will take approximately two years from now to complete the transition.

Charmain Tom Ryan responded and said, “We also looked at the solid waste district through the assessor. We the commissioners can form a solid waste district but in order to give that any taxing authority we would have to go to an election. I didn’t ask him if that was a one-time deal or we’d have to come back every four years and do it again, I don’t know. It’s not going to happen in an off-election year.”

Overfield said, “I did ask Craig McCombie about that and brought up some of your guys’ concerns from the work session. And one of the things he told me was in at least one other location they created a solid waste district as you mentioned to get all the players and their membership on one board and then they moved forward with the planning and the budgeting and the setup. And then it came to the end and they said we are now going to the vote and it’s either going to live or die by the vote. If it dies, then we’ve got this all set up. We’ve all been a party to setting a direction, but now it’s dead so we gotta figure out how to fund it just with user fees. If it lives, then you’ve got a board that has taxing capacity plus user fees. He did point that out as one option.”

Chairman Ryan replied, “We should continue to have discussion as we go into the fall if we are going to start a solid waste district and we can go from there.”

Overfield said that he will continue talking to McCombie and Washakie County’s solid waste district about tipping fees and see where they get in that discussion. 

Ryan added, “We did have a discussion about water and bringing water. I talked to Jeff Rosen today and I said given all this recovery money through the USDA, I keep hearing that water is a huge issue. I said, do you think we could fund that project through there? He said absolutely.”

Overfield asked, “Fund?” Ryan continued, “A fresh water system where you drill a well and bring it down. So, they’re working on a study right now to take Owl Creek and south Thermopolis. He said he just went to a deal in Cheyenne that was talking about this money and he said water is a huge focus. All that engineering, that study is fairly recent and it wouldn’t take very much to revive it and bring it back.”

The Hot Springs County Commissioners and the Town of Thermopolis will continue working together and discuss these matters.

Pete Hallsten and other representatives from WYDOT gave a State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) report to the commissioners. They are seeking public input and are collaborating with local and governmental entities. Hallsten said their top three priorities for their projects is to have a balanced budget, prioritize their assets and projects, and to add passing lanes to roads or highways. WYDOT is also facing workforce struggles as they need hires for their work. 

Hallsten provided a breakdown of what work they do. They manage 6,700 miles of roads; 6,000 bridges and structures; 42,200 culverts; 800 miles of guardrails; 80,000 signs; and 12,000 miles of fences.

Hallsten reported that there are $354.3 million in unfunded operating needs and that they deal with a $200 million annual shortage. As part of their cost-saving measures they closed certain rest areas last year. Those rest areas were reopened this spring but at the end of September they will decide whether to close them again. There are also some indefinitely delayed construction projects but they are focusing on adding passing lanes on the roads or highways. 

For those interested in learning about what projects they are working on, Hallsten suggested visiting their website and looking at the STIP map. It is a color code by year map of projects with descriptions. 

Kaia Tharp, a resident engineer reported that for the Wind River Canyon they have plans for rock scaling, installing rockfall mesh and slide stabilization. This work they plan to do during the winter time when there is less tourist traffic. 

Matt Grant of New York Life in Casper gave a benefits presentation and described their life insurance and disability insurance. Grant said the commissioners can have their employees pay 100% or the county can partially contribute. They offer both whole and term life insurance. Chairman Tom Ryan told Grant that they just finalized their budget for the coming year and that if they might be interested in their services, they would have to wait until the following year. 

The commissioners voted and passed to approve a UW Extension Memorandum of Understanding with a change to it being a two-year plan.

In other business, the commissioners voted and passed to approve a Board of Control Consent for the Tonn’s property. They also approved the use of the old airport for Highway Patrol training for Tuesday, August 24. There was discussion about the property of 518 Arapahoe Street as this is a county owned property. They voted and passed to solicit Requests For Proposals for this property in hopes that someone may have ideas for how to use it and to ask for bids.

Also, they made a numeric correction to the final budget and voted and passed to make this change. They were approximately $3,800 by dropping telephone funds and changing emergency expenditures. The timing of this and small change did not require an amended budget procedure.