County board OKs waste station

The Coles County Board approved a resolution to accept Allied Waste Industries Inc. proposal to build a new transfer station in Charleston at Tuesday night’s meeting.

The current landfill is scheduled to be closed in a few months and the new landfill will be built in its same location at 635 W. State St, said County Board Chairman Robert Webb.

A transfer station is a building where solid waste can be stored until it is taken by truckload to a landfill somewhere else.

“There is an urgent need for transfer stations to hold solid waste disposal,” Webb said.

The host agreement between the board and Allied Waste includes a $1 per ton of waste host fee, which is projected to add up to approximately $85,000 annually. Allied Waste has agreed to give the board $50,000 for upgrades on Loxa Road near the facility’s location and agrees to protect the property value of property within one mile of the site.

August 18, 2000 the county board denied a proposal by Allied Waste to build a 12 county landfill in Charleston. Allied appealed this decision to the Illinois Pollution Control Board.

In accordance with a resolution passed by the board, it will be necessary for Allied to drop the appeal with the Illinois Pollution Control Board for the proposal with the transfer stations to go through.

The board also approved a reccomendation supporting Allied’s proposal to add disposal capacity to the current landfill. This includes moving two buildings at the current site to make more space for solid waste storage for the next three years.

The space left at the landfill will only allow for a few more months of waste disposal, but it may take up to three years to build the transfer stations.

“We do not want a period of time where solid waste would have to be transferred directly to a landfill,” Webb said.