Grant, Adams counties play waiting game on vacant landfill

Grant and Adams counties plan for more trash as the population grows, but owners of a 23-year-old empty landfill have no timeline for opening. They are, however, “looking ahead.”

“In our business, we have to look ahead,” said Jacki Lang, communications manager for Waste Management Inc. of Washington, a subsidiary of the nation’s largest trash company. “We are always looking ahead to anticipate the needs of communities and customers and we permitted this landfill as part of a long-term visioning strategy in the region.”

The 550-acre landfill, which has never been used, sits two miles east of Washtucna in Adams County. In February, Waste Management started updating its operations and management plan, as well as its groundwater monitoring plan, to make the language consistent with current regulations.

Once open, the landfill would service surrounding patrons for at least a century, Lang said.

The site was first permitted in 1997, Lang said. While the permits are updated every decade, there are currently no plans for a grand opening.

According to a 1997 Spokesman-Review article, the landfill was initially set to be operational by 1999. Lang denies this.

“We’ve never defined a timeline,” Lang said. “We’re keeping the permits active. Routine updates for our permits. You could call it housekeeping.”

Needless to say, the recent updates to the site pique the interest of surrounding public works departments.

The Grant County landfill is expected to be at capacity by 2032, said Public Works Director Sam Castro. This leaves the department in search of any viable replacement option.

Opening a new landfill is expensive and competitive and has permanent environmental ramifications, Castro said. Opening a transfer station like Adams County would significantly increase tipping fees.

As the department has an urgent need, the recent permit updates caught Castro’s attention, he said, as an option could be to transfer Grant County’s trash to the Adams County facility, if it opened, instead of opening one in Grant County. It would also depend on making a deal with Waste Management.

But Adams County has no landfill, said county Public Works Director Todd O’Brien. It currently operates two transfer stations outside Ritzville and Othello and then hauls the waste to Waste Management’s Columbia Ridge Commercial Landfill in Arlington, Oregon.

“One of the major concerns for us, long-hauling to Oregon, is the transportation costs to and from there,” O’Brien said. “That includes labor and fuel and equipment, and obviously if we could take a one-way trip of 160 miles and cut it to 40 miles, that would be significant savings.”

Further, the county’s population continues to grow, especially the southern half, O’Brien said.

Current waste loads in Adams County weigh in at around 20,000 tons, he said. Once it hits 25,000, it may need a whole new transfer floor.

Tipping fees in Adams County sit at $80 per ton for solid waste, which covers transfer station operation and transportation costs, he said. This can be compared to Grant County’s $49.33 per ton, in a region with a landfill.

One good thing about the Columbia Ridge Landfill is it doesn’t charge Adams County a dumping fee, O’Brien said, so all of the cost goes to transportation. The same would be true of the Washtucna landfill.

It’s a business decision, O’Brien said. Waste Management must decide if it can get enough waste there to pay for construction costs.

“We’ve been in the same situation for 25 years, waiting to see whether it will or will not open,” he said.

For the foreseeable future, public works may remain in uncertainty.

“It’s kind of an odd story,” Lang said. “People ask every few years and we say, ‘No, there’s no timeline.’”