PORT TOWNSEND — The Board of Jefferson County Commissioners directed staff to continue exploring a new location for a solid waste transfer station in south county on Monday.
Staff emphasized that any potential move remains years away and unfunded.
The location being explored is a county-owned property near the intersection of state Highways 104 and 19.
“We talked about the timeline (at a recent meeting). No time soon,” Solid Waste Manager Al Cairns said in a workshop presentation for the board Monday. “It’s quite a lengthy process there. And, of course, we have exactly no money to build a new site, presently.”
A slide in Cairns’ presentation circled 2032 as a projected date.
Moving forward is essential, Cairns said. He referred to the process of establishing facilities that will fit future needs as a race.
“We’re trying to get a new facility built before we throw money into a facility where we’re not going to get a high return on that investment,” Cairns said. “We’re trying to minimize how much we spend to keep the facility operational while we plan for and build a new facility.”
For recycling, the Cape George facility would remain active.
“It just makes more sense. It’s already built,” Cairns said. “There’s no capital outlay necessary for it.”
The process for considering a site started in 2022, Cairns said. The initial scope included 9,600 possible sites, he added.
Cairns told commissioners that four properties advanced as finalists following a multi-step evaluation conducted by both a facilities task force and county staff. Among those four, the property near highways 104 and 19 received the highest overall ranking, 331.
“The task force, separately from staff, arrived at the same ranking, similar scores for those four short-listed sites,” Cairns said.
The current solid waste transfer station in Cape George also was shortlisted, but it received the lowest rating, 180.
The evaluation criteria included adaptability to population growth and future legislative changes to waste management, service equity, environmental excellence, potential for public/private partnerships, impact on neighbors through land development and affordability over the 40-year window being planned for, according to Cairns’ presentation.
After reducing four sites down to two, staff conducted field studies, comparing the top site with one on Center Road for noise impacts, necessary traffic improvements, geology and critical areas.
The site near the state highways proved to be a better option in terms of noise, as there are no neighbors for miles. Its geology was better and it has fewer critical areas, Cairns said. Both sites would require a turn lane to be added.
During public comment, some residents questioned why the facility could not be upgraded or expanded rather than relocating operations.
Cairns said the Cape George site lacks the physical capacity and flexibility needed to meet future regulatory and operational demands.
Cairns noted that, with the Port Hadlock urban growth area (UGA) expected to see major population growth, the proposed site is actually more centrally located for future populations than the current site.
“(Cape George is) not adapting to where our future population projections are,” he said. “It’s really constrained in terms of buildable area there and the high cost of improvements that would need to be made.”
Forty percent of county growth is expected to take place in the UGA, 40 percent in Port Townsend, and the remaining 20 percent should be distributed in the rural areas, commissioner Greg Brotherton said.
Since curbside pickup is mandatory in Port Townsend city limits, considerations of centrality should be weighted toward populations not mandated to have curbside pickup, he added.
Legislative cycles often are fraught with decisions that could affect the design of facilities, Cairns said.
“We just don’t have enough space (at the Cape George site) to be adaptable to whatever comes out of Olympia in any given legislative session,” he said.
County resident Jim Friedman noted in a public comment that the location would be more accessible to Kitsap County residents than many Jefferson County residents. Cairns said that could be a good thing.
Brief conversations with counterparts in Kitsap County indicated that the site might be mutually beneficial and could lead to Kitsap foregoing building a small transfer station for its northern residents, Cairns said.
“There could be really big benefit for both counties in that we may be able to accommodate some of their waste,” he said. “We can develop both a cost share and a revenue share agreement. It might gain us access to railhead service in Bremerton, which would have a huge impact in mitigating future costs and tipping fee increases.”
Cairns noted there are two ways to incentivize residents to move toward curbside pickup. One is to reduce the minimum cost of pickup and the other is to aim for equal inconvenience of site location. The latter was factored into the site location, he said.
Cairns shared an image of the site plan which he said is only 10 percent complete.
Following the commissioners’ direction to move forward on site planning, next steps include fine-tuning the design, having the plan peer reviewed, estimating costs, making a financial plan, undergoing wetland delineation on the property, securing water rights and an easement on the property, rezoning and seeking funding.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com
