Tim Walker
AMR Reporter
During the July 30 Pocahontas County Solid Waste Authority (SWA) meeting, Jacob Meck owner of the Allegheny Disposal Company, gave a presentation to the authority members which further clarified his offer to build a transfer station for the SWA to operate.
Meck had originally talked with the SWA at its July 16 special meeting, about his offer for Allegheny Disposal to build a truck-to-truck transfer station at the county landfill site for the SWA to operate once the landfill is officially filled up and closed in the fall of 2026. That offer included Meck’s company building the transfer station and once it is operational, allowing the SWA to operate it and repay his construction costs over time. Meck said his company would also handle the hauling of the trash for the county for a standard fee, but Allegheny Disposal would also be a full tipping fee paying customer of the transfer station once it is operational. Meck has made it clear he is offering this because the SWA has not yet come up with an alternative to the landfill and time is running short to ensure that waste disposal continues in the county once the landfill closes. Prior to making this offer, Meck had planned to build a smaller transfer station on his own property in Green Bank for the use of his own company, but his new proposal would make that unnecessary and would also benefit the citizens of Pocahontas County.
Some of the information he provided at the July 30 SWA meeting included:
• He can dispose of one load per month of leachate by hauling it to a proper disposal site at a nominal cost of $1,129 per load. (Leachate is the solution (or suspension) that forms when liquid travels through a solid and absorbs some components of that solid with it.) He said a truck-to-truck transfer station generates very little leachate.
• Instead of costly asphalt, he would use a concrete apron at the transfer station, and a gravel roadway from the scales to the station.
• The existing water well will be in the way of the big trucks, but it can be cut below grade with a manhole cover to overcome that.
• There will be minimal trash spilling out onto the transfer station floor in this type of transfer station, and the three-sided building will face East to minimize any wind-blown trash.
• The inclusion of three walking floor trailers will be enough to eliminate having any trash lying around outside of trailers over weekends when the Greenbrier and Tucker landfills are closed
• If the trash crane breaks down, it will be Allegheny Disposal’s responsibility to provide a back-up piece of equipment.
• The transfer station will be able to handle construction debris.
• The SWA will continue to maintain, and plow snow from the landfill road, as they do now, and will be responsible for ensuring only legitimate trash is disposed of at the green boxes, and to continue the other functions that they currently do.
• The transfer station construction lease will run $300,000 to $330,000 annually and hauling the annual 7,000 tons of trash to the Tucker County Landfill will cost $525,000 per year (which is $75 per ton and includes the fuel surcharge.)
• He estimates the total annual cost budget for the SWA will be between $1,180,600 and $1,228,100.
Meck said he recognizes that this is much more expensive than it was to use their own landfill, but that will no longer be an option after the fall of 2026, and this is probably the least expensive alternative. He also said he has some ideas to help the SWA to generate more revenue which he will discuss later with the SWA.
Also at the meeting, the SWA members voted to recommend to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection that they appoint Greg Hamons to the Pocahontas County SWA Board to replace Jamie Walker, whose term expired and who did not request to be reappointed.
