Landfill budget approved

The Upper Platte River Solid Waste District (Landfill Board) met last Wednesday to discuss and approve their annual budget. One of the main topics of discussion were fee increases for landfill use in the Platte Valley. According to council Chairman Randy Raymer, the fee increase could be needed to create enough revenue to afford the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) mandated transfer station.

“In order to receive a State Land and Investment Board (SLIB) grant/loan, we have to prove that we either have the 25 percent matching grant in cash or rates that will sustain the 0 percent interest loan that SLIB would give us, not only for the construction of the transfer station, but for the anticipated closure costs,” Raymer said.

The DEQ estimates the cost for the landfill closure and switch to a transfer station to be around $2.3 million which means that the towns would have to show that they can collect the fees to cover approximately $600,000, according to Raymer.

A study by PMPC done last year estimates that a residential fee of $25 dollars per household would be needed to cover the costs but Raymer believes that may have been a bit of an overestimation, “At first I was concerned that it wouldn’t be enough, now I’m concerned it may be over the top in the long haul.”

Raymer expressed concern that if the state legislation does not make changes to the landfill closure language to provide 75 percent of the entire project instead of the “75 percent of 75 percent” of the total project cost, which according to Raymer, is currently the maximum amount the board would receive in state funding, then the accumulated money from the rate increase would be needed to help cover the additional costs of the transfer station project and landfill closure.

The board also discussed how to deal with billing procedures like how to deal with unpaid landfill fees and doing a more comprehensive user analysis to collect information on who is using the landfill, how much is being collected in each area, and who is not paying fees to the landfill.