Mary Clendenen
Office Administrator
Pocahontas County Solid Waste Authority
We recognize the many questions and comments that have been raised about the construction of a transfer station in Pocahontas County for the disposal of municipal solid waste.
Due to the rural nature of Pocahontas County, the Green Box system was developed by the SWA to deal with most of the residential solid waste in the county. It has been the most efficient method to serve residential properties because the private haulers were not interested in driving to every residence in the county for pickup service, since many are in remote areas and there may only be one or two houses on a given road. The cost to residential customers would have been astronomical if the private haulers were required to go to every house in the county to pick up the trash.
Of course, once the green boxes were developed, we had to have somewhere to take that solid waste. The SWA was fortunate to find land that was owned by the Fertigs to construct a landfill. The Fertigs did not want to sell their land but they were gracious enough to lease us their land upon which to construct a landfill. Over the years, we have expanded the landfill by the creation of new cells with the consent of the Fertig family, but at great expense.
In 2017, the SWA began negotiating to purchase an additional twenty-five acres of property connected to the existing landfill from Jody Fertig. Ten acres of the property were determined by the SWA’s engineering firm to be for suitable for landfill cells. You must keep in mind that not all land is suitable for the creation of these cells. These additional 10 acres would have lasted approximately 50 years, and leachate would have gravity-fed to our existing treatment facility. It was an ideal situation and would have been affordable if construction of the new cells could have begun in late 2017 or 2018. Unfortunately, Mr. Fertig passed away in October 2017. The land was left to his remaining family members. They were not interested in selling any land to the SWA, so the ability to construct new cells in the area vanished. Contrary to the beliefs of some folks in the county, the SWA did not have any ability or desire to take the Fertigs’ land by eminent domain.
When it was clear that there was no path forward at the current landfill site, the SWA began searching in earnest for a new location. You must keep in mind that to construct a new landfill at a new location was going to be very expensive. We would have had to construct a new leachate system, a new treatment plant, and construct all new facilities for the operation of the landfill at a new site. There were other sites considered by the SWA, but none of them were feasible from a cost perspective. The problem is the SWA landfill only receives about 8000 tons of municipal solid waste a year. A landfill only makes sense if you have enough annual tonnage to carry debt service, operating costs, closure reserves, and post-closure liabilities. Pocahontas County is not a high-volume waste market. 8000 tons is simply not enough tonnage to build a new landfill at a new location. You must remember, solid waste facilities are prohibited on federal and state forest lands, which precludes a large portion of our county.
If the SWA could have found another location to build a new landfill, the development cost per acre would be more than $2 million per acre. Landfill development is directly related to the cost of oil, as composite liners are petroleum based and construction costs since COVID have been significantly higher. In addition to the costs of constructing new facilities and a new cell at a new location, we still have the costs associated with the closure of the current landfill. Originally, it was going to cost about $3.2M to close the current landfill. The SWA has worked for the past several months to obtain a permit to use closure turf as an alternative means of closure and to substantially reduce closure costs to about $2.4M. The cost of closure will use the majority of the SWA’s available funds.
The SWA would not have enough money to construct a new landfill cell and the required leachate treatment facility without getting a loan to construct it. The cost estimates for a new landfill at a new location would have been more than $10M over a 15 year period, assuming the construction costs today. And, with the limited amount of waste that we receive, the cost was simply too high. The tipping fees—the cost per ton to dispose of municipal solid waste— would have much higher than what we are currently projecting.
You have to remember, the only substantial sources of income the SWA has are from the tipping fees at the landfill or future transfer station and from the Green Box fees.
In an effort to address this situation and to find a solution to this problem, the SWA and Mark Holstine, the head of the WV Solid Waste Management Board started a Stakeholder’s Group in May 2023 to research all available options to serve the county after the landfill reaches capacity. Unfortunately, there was little interest from our citizens in the Stakeholders Group. However, three methods were evaluated by our board and the Solid Waste Management Board:
1. SWA continuing to operate only the Green Boxes and truck garbage to Greenbrier County Landfill or Tucker County Landfill, or possibly use Tygarts Valley Transfer Station;
2. Compactor sites instead of Green Box sites with a larger convenience center for bulky garbage & construction materials; and,
3. Construction of a transfer station with garbage being trucked to another county.
Cost was the primary factor in all of the options that we have considered. The low volume of tonnage received in our county makes each of these options very expensive. The logistics of how to get the waste from our county to other landfills without wearing out our trucks, and how to make schedules work with other facilities that are not open on weekends or holidays were also factors that had to be considered.
All of these options involved raising the Green Box fee substantially. Although our board was told by the SWMB, Public Service Commission representative, Bill Flenner, and some local politicians that the Green Box fee should be increased to be closer to costs paid in other areas of the state (about $300 per year), our board was hesitant to raise the fee this much. The reality is the fee should have been much higher all along, but the SWA did not want to do that.
Raising the fee was not the Board’s desire, so we visited the County Commission to present financial information and request assistance from Hotel Motel tax or to see if the cost to operate the Green Box system could be added to property tax to disburse it among more properties. We asked for assistance from Hotel Motel tax from the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.
During this three-year process, the SWA requested assistance from the County Commission for annual funding so it would have a sustainable source of income and would be better suited to apply for a loan to construct a transfer station. The SWA needed a reliable source of repayment in order to even apply for such a large loan. Without the obligation of all solid waste generators in the county to use the transfer station and without financial help, it was uncertain whether the SWA could repay a loan and continue to fund its annual operations.
The Commission and Convention and Visitor’s Bureau were unable to assist with annual funding. The SWA also approached Region 4 Planning and Development and the Solid Waste Management Board staff to look for available grants to help with construction and purchase of equipment. We found that many large grants are available for water and sewer projects, but no substantial amounts are available for solid waste facilities. The SWA was urged by the WV Solid Waste Management Board staff, Public Service Commission, DEP and County Commissioners and other politicians to work with the Mecks to find a solution for the county’s future solid waste needs because the Mecks bring the majority of paid tonnage to the landfill.
The County Commission purchased the landfill property and put it in the Solid Waste Authority’s name after a very lengthy process in March 2025. This ensured that the Solid Waste Authority would be responsible for the post-closure cost of at least $75,000 per year for up to 30 years after the landfill closes. That cost is not going to go away; we have to address it.
On July 17, 2025, the Mecks’ proposed building a transfer station and leasing it back to the SWA for 20-years with a monthly payment of $25,000-$27,500. The SWA did not feel they could afford this lease.
On December 17, 2025, the SWA formed a Negotiating Group of two of its members, Mary Clendenen (Office Administrator), their attorney, David Sims, and the Mecks and their attorney to try to work out a private/public partnership. The partnership was necessary because neither the SWA nor the Mecks can sustain a transfer station for the county without the other entity. The group has worked on several different lease agreements, culminating with Option #4 which was approved by the SWA on February 25, 2026. The SWA will sell approximately two acres of land beside the existing landfill shop building to the Greenbrier Development Authority and JacMal, LLC will construct a transfer station on the property and lease it back to the SWA for the SWA to operate. This lease involves a monthly payment of $16,759 for 15 years with a final payout of $1,103,495.24 at the end and includes maintenance of the transfer station and crane by Mecks. The costs associated with building the transfer station and equipment needed were estimated to be about $2.75M if the SWA constructed it. As it stands, the cost to the SWA as currently planned will be $4.12M over a 15 year period. If the SWA would have borrowed $2.75M to build it and equip it, it would have cost nearly $4M over that same 15 year period. It made economic sense to lease a
building from the Mecks rather than borrowing and building it ourselves.
This lease agreement has not been finalized. There is only a Memorandum of Understanding that has been signed—nothing more.
We know there have been accusations that our meetings are not properly posted. We are only required to post our agenda on the courthouse entrance (as many other county agencies also do), and as you know we send it to the Times and WVMR. For regularly scheduled meetings or hearings that require publication, we post meeting notices in The Pocahontas Times. Since it is a weekly paper, we are not able to post all special meetings in time to get them publicized there. We follow the schedule required by the Open Meetings Act. Some of our special meetings have recently been scheduled at 2:00 p.m. to try to avoid so much overtime for the courthouse security employees. We are in full compliance with the Open Meetings Act.
With respect to the finances of the Solid Waste Authority, the WV Solid Waste Management board receives a quarterly report of the SWA’s activities, including detailed financial information. Our financials are prepared by our CPA and audited annually. Audits are posted on the WV State Auditor’s Office on the Chief Inspector’s page. All of our financials are thoroughly reviewed by the Public Service Commission’s staff, including their financial analysts, every time we file a rate case for our tipping fees. Any suggestion that the monies from the Solid Waste Authority are wasted is simply false. We have been very good stewards of the money, which is why we have enough money to pay for the closure of the landfill.
With respect to flow control, we have mandatory disposal regulations that require all municipal solid waste to be disposed of in our landfill. We have permitted haulers to take their trash to other facilities to keep the landfill open longer—but we are not going to be able to do that with a new transfer station. Flow control gives the SWA predictable tonnage, stable revenue, lower per-ton cost, and ensures that all solid waste generated is properly disposed.
If we do not have flow control, haulers will take the commercial solid waste that they pick up to other facilities—because it may be cheaper for them to do that—but it imposes a higher rate per ton for residential customers who do not have that capability.
