Clallam County commissioners are poised to approve an agreement with the city of Port Angeles today that will launch the eventual hauling of much of Clallam’s garbage off the North Olympic Peninsula.
The Port Angeles city landfill — which receives trash from the central and eastern parts of the county — will be closed in 2006 because it will be full.
Port Angeles has proposed creating a transfer station, where garbage can be taken from local trucks to be loaded on larger trucks for hauling to a yet-unnamed destination in Oregon or Eastern Washington.
County commissioners are scheduled to approve two versions of the agreement with Port Angeles for the proposed garbage transfer station — one with Sequim and one without.
The meeting is at 10 a.m. today at the county courthouse, 223 E. Fourth St., Port Angeles.
The Sequim City Council is expected to review and consider its role in the agreement at a 9 a.m. Wednesday meeting in Guy Cole Convention Center at Carrie Blake Park, 202 N. Blake Ave.
Agreement versions with and without Sequim goes to the Port Angeles City Council for approval at its 6 p.m. meeting today at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
‘On a delay track’
“This has been on a delay track for several months,” said county Public Works Director Craig Jacobs, urging county commissioners’ approval.
Jacobs added that the agreement would result in a “practical, cost-effective way to move waste.”
At the commissioners’ Monday afternoon work session, Jacobs said the agreement was “not a huge change from what’s being done now. It’s just not going to be dumped in a hole.”
The Port Angeles landfill accepts about 60,000 tons of garbage annually, including recycling, which totals 91 percent of Clallam County’s garbage.
The city of Sequim accounts for 15 percent of those 60,000 tons.
The landfill must close by Dec. 31, 2006, because it will be full and because scavenger birds at the site pose a potential hazard to aircraft at nearby William R. Fairchild International Airport.
The city must adhere to a Federal Aviation Administration safety edict or could lose federal funding.