Tim Walker
AMR Reporter
At the June 25 Pocahontas County Waste Authority (SWA) meeting, Mark Holstine and Kelly Vickers from the West Virginia State Solid Waste Board delivered their Solid Waste Management Board Performance Review of the county’s SWA.
Holstine said that review was “satisfactory,” which disappointed the SWA members.
“The biggest thing I wonder about is Mark (Holstine) called up here and said we had a 93 (%) in our Performance Review,” member Ed Riley said.
“I don’t know I said you had a 93,” Holstine answered, “because there was an issue on our side that I apologize for, and that report was nowhere near 93. So, I had to take care of the issue – can’t go into the details, it’s a personnel issue. I had to find somebody to do the work – that’s why you see Kelly sitting here. She had to start over and put that report back together. She started to just brush-up the report that was in draft form, and it was so bad that she had to scrap it, and that’s when the duplication of questions started. She had to come back to Mary, because the answers we got the second time were different than the answers that were recorded the first time.”
Holstine made it clear that he was not implying that different answers were given the second time, but that the answers given the first time were misreported by the person who did the first draft report.
Kelly Vickers told the members that there were some good things in the report, including good procedural issues, good trans- parency, maintenance, safety procedures, and equipment upkeep, as well as a very good staff. Vickers said in all, the SWA, operationally and administratively, “knocked it out of the park.”
The negative issues that lowered the score included things like paying 100% of employee benefits, not having a plan in place for when the landfill closes; their comprehensive plan which is required by state code is a year overdue. She said the SWA’s expenses outpace the revenues, and “you are not collecting all of those revenues.”
Mary Clendenon explained that since Vickers’ report was done in December, most of the overdue green box fees are paid after the new year when reminders are mailed out.
Member Jamie Walker explained that the issue with putting a future plan in place is having the money to afford a plan. Member Dave McLaughlin said even if someone built them a facility, they could not afford to run it. Ed Riley added that in the future we cannot afford to have an open, unsupervised green box program, since so much unauthorized trash is put in those boxes.
SWA President Dave Henderson said they have been discussing three options for the future: a compactor option; a transfer station option; and a hauling option, and he wants to discuss these in detail at a special meeting in July.
Holstine said he had held a public meeting here to try and assist in finding a future plan but backed away from trying to help when it became clear that people here offered complaints but not solutions, and he felt his assistance was not really wanted. He was also upset, he said, when he brought a private trash hauler here to discuss solutions, and Henderson ended up yelling at that person.
Holstine said state code 22c requires SWAs to work with private companies and recommended that they look hard at the transfer station option offered to them by Allegheny Disposal. He also said the idea of hauling the trash to Lewisburg themselves would be too expensive, as would operating their own transfer station or compactors.
Also at the meeting, Henderson presented Ed Riley with a Certificate of Appreciation for his 36 years of dedicated service to the Pocahontas County Solid Waste Authority.
