Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 27, 1994 TAG: 9405270100
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER CURRENT
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PRICES FORK LENGTH: Medium
As a small crowd looked on, County Administrator Betty Thomas and Supervisors Joe Gorman and Henry Jablonski threw three bags of trash into Montgomery's brand new compactor located at its first "staffed, consolidated solid waste disposal site."
Then part-time operator Harold Cherry, a retired deputy sheriff of 14 years experience, pushed a button. The machine rumbled to life and shoved the bags into a large container that will be disconnected from the compactor and trucked about once a week to the Mid-County Landfill.
The compactor and container hold the same amount of refuse as 12 of the "green boxes" the county uses in its rural areas. But none of those 250 green containers spread over more than 65 sites across Montgomery are staffed like the new Prices Fork site.
"This is a massive improvement," said Tim Myers, the county's recycling coordinator. Keeping it manned keeps it clean. There's no loose, windblown trash; there's no illegal dumping.
Located just downhill from the small village of Prices Fork, the fenced, 7.5 acre site opened in November. But the county waited to dedicate it until the last piece of equipment, the $15,000 compactor, was in place last week.
Aside from trash, the collection station has bins for recycling cardboard, paper, cans, plastic and glass. The attendants will also accept used motor oil and car batteries, and, for a small fee, household appliances such as refrigerators, ovens and so forth.
The station is open seven days a week for 12 hours a day. Developing it cost $20,000 for the land and another $100,000 for equipment and construction, spread over two years, estimated Tim McCoy, the county's superintendent of public works.
Paying the three part-time attendants will cost the county approximately $20,000 in the coming budget year. But, county officials say, the consolidated site saves money by reducing the number of runs per week to the landfill and reducing the number of green-box sites required.
Cost dissuaded the Board of Supervisors from committing to building a second staffed site on the other end of the county in the next year. Facing the first tax increase in three years, the supervisors eliminated $78,000 from the budget beginning July 1 that would have gone to develop another collection center at the county industrial park in Elliston. The price would be lower there because the county already owns the land.
Some items cannot be dropped off at the Prices Fork site. They include: tires, brush, liquid waste, pesticides, insecticides and drummed or canned waste. Tires and brush can be taken to the Mid-County Landfill for shredding and mulching.
by CNB