Tim Walker
AMR Reporter
During its special meeting October 9, the Pocahontas County Solid Waste Authority Board (SWA) voted to terminate its agreement with lawyer David Sims, as legal representative.
Prior to the SWA’s recent shift in direction due to the appointments of Gail Siers and Nancy Harris to the board, the board had utilized Sims as a primary source of information and recommendations regarding the future of solid waste disposal in the county.
A number of concerned county residents did not like Sim’s recommendations to have JacMal Industries build a transfer station at the landfill site. Even when it became apparent that would not continue to be their plan, many of those residents were angered by Sims’ active involvement at meetings. During discussions of the motion to remove Sims and seek other legal counsel, former SWA Chairman David Henderson and member Phil Cobb argued against removing Sims, saying Sims has won every court case he has handled for the SWA. However, on a 3 to 2 vote, the majority voted to remove Sims.
The board also discussed metal recycling issues at the landfill. SWA Chairman Gail Siers said the SWA had been paying Jacob Meck $700 each time he picked up and hauled away the dumpster containing recyclable metal at the landfill. Siers said he has found a company in Beckley – Barker’s (Junk Company, Inc.) – that will bring a dumpster for those metals, set it and when it is full, pick it up and haul it away at no cost to the SWA. All five members voted to offer a contract to Barker’s to do that.
Vice-chair Nancy Harris proposed that they accept a trailer that would be donated to the SWA, fix it up to be a suitable SWA office and place it at the landfill near the old scales. She said they will also advertise for a bid to have water, sewer and power run to it. Harris said they can then move their office from the courthouse to the landfill, and this will allow the Office Administrator to have her own office in the trailer. She noted that the County Commission is wanting them to move out of the courthouse so this will also accommodate them. She said the trailer would have a window that landfill customers could drive up to and pay right from their vehicles. The members passed a motion to do this and to advertise and explore the cost for the installation of the utilities for it.
They discussed hiring Centec to examine the landfill and determine what additional space is available there. Henderson pointed out that this has already been done and Centec is in the process now.
There was a discussion about a letter received by Henderson alleging that the ParMar store has been sending their trash to the green boxes without paying the fee for that. Although it was pointed out that ParMar has a dumpster picked up by an authorized disposal company the majority of the members decided to put no reliability or additional time discussing this since it was an anonymous letter, and those do not have credibility.
They also discussed the number of commercial businesses in the county that don’t have dumpsters or pay green box fees. It was pointed out that some small businesses generate very little trash – maybe one bag a week. They said they agreed farmers and those small businesses should not be required to have dumpsters.
In a final action, they approved on a 3 to 1 vote, the conditional hiring, subject to reference checks, of the following named applicants as “on-call” substitute CDL drivers and landfill operators at a rate of $20 per hour without benefits. They are Doug Galford, Michael Nottingham, Dempsy Fox Jr., Cody Rexrode and Dwayne Lambert. These drivers will be placed on a rotating call list to provide needed coverage with no guaranteed hours.
In addition, they approved advertising in the newspaper for additional on-call applicants.
