Council members question plans for waste transfer
Some East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council members say they have concerns about a Mississippi company’s plans to build a solid waste transfer station just south of Southern University.
But city-parish public works officials and state regulators say the property is properly zoned and the company’s plans meet regulatory requirements.
“It makes no sense to me what they’re doing,” said Councilman Mike Walker. “Are they bypassing our landfill and not paying the tipping fee?”
Council members have a number of questions, including the possible economic impact to the city-parish of the plans by Riverbend Environmental Services LLC of Fayette, Miss., Walker said. He said council members also want to know why they weren’t notified about the proposal earlier.
Councilman Trae Welch said he plans to bring the issue up at a council meeting, possibly at the council’s next meeting at 4 p.m. on Wednesday. Welch said one of his concerns is the only notification required was to the city-parish, but council members weren’t alerted until recently.
Welch said he will be speaking with other council members about how there could be better notification required in the future for council members and people in the surrounding communities.
However, there is very little the metro council can do to stop or prevent the project from moving forward, according to city-parish and state officials.
The property is already zoned for industrial use, there’s no permit requirement from the city-parish and no permit required from the state. However, there is a requirement that the governing parish be notified of the project 30 days before construction begins and the transfer station is controlled by state solid waste regulations.
“Really, there’s no recourse for the city-parish on this,” said David Guillory, assistant director of the East Baton Rouge Parish Department of Public Works.
Councilman Ulysses “Bones” Addison said his two main concerns are getting more information about what the facility would do and that it could be a stepping stone to a larger operation in the future.
“I’ve seen what these things can mushroom into,” Addison said. “We deserve a clear and concise answer of what’s going on with this property.”
The transfer station would not process or store household waste and can’t accept hazardous or industrial waste, according to state regulations. The regulations also spell out things like odor control, litter control and required buffers between operations of the transfer station and the property lines.
Scott Guilliams, administrator of waste permits at the state Department of Environmental Quality, said no waste can be left over night at the site by regulation. Water on the site will be contained and removed for disposal so the facility doesn’t require a water permit, he said.
“There is no public comment period because there is no permit,” Guillory said. “It’s not like somebody opening a landfill.”
He said the transfer station is not something that can be a foothold in the parish for a future landfill because that’s an entirely different application process that can take years to navigate.
Although some council members expressed concerns that the facility could take away money that the city-parish collects in tipping fees, Guillory said that’s not likely.
“Not at the prices he’s planning to charge,” he said. “I don’t have any fear of losing a waste stream at the (city-parish’s) landfill.”
The tipping fees pays for landfill operations, street sweepers and other solid waste programs in the parish including the recycling program, Guillory said.
Guillory said it appears that Riverbend Environmental Services will be charging $35 a ton, while the landfill used by the city-parish charges $28 a ton. In addition, Riverbend Environmental Services can’t do local residential garbage collection, so it’s unclear where the market will be for the new facility, he said.
Guillory said it’s possible the new facility would attempt to compete with landfills in Livingston Parish and Sorrento, which also charge tipping fees of $35 or $36.
Andrew Densing, vice president of Riverbend Environmental Services, said the company is not in the trash collection business. Instead, trash haulers would bring solid waste they collect to the company’s Baton Rouge transfer station, where it will then be loaded on to other trucks and taken to the Riverbend Environmental Services landfill in Mississippi, just north of Natchez.
Densing would not say where the company expects to get its waste.
“We thought there was a need in the market,” he said. “We talked to some local haulers and there was interest in another disposal option.”
Construction on the transfer station will likely start in the next couple weeks, Densing said, but an opening date has not yet been determined.
Regulations allow for the storage of white goods, presorted yard trash or household recyclable materials, but Densing said it’s doubtful that the company will get much in the way of white goods because of its location next to a metal scrap business.
He also noted that the parish has a good recycling program.