PHARSALIA – More than five years after Chenango County opened a multi-million dollar cell at the solid waste landfill in the Town of Pharsalia, county executives are now moving forward with plans to have another cell built and ready for use within two years.
At the year-end meeting of the Chenango County Board of Supervisors, town and city officials moved to authorize a $249,700 agreement with Barton and Loguidice, of Syracuse, for engineering and development of a new solid waste cell at the Chenango County landfill. The contract encompasses design, bidding assistance, construction, administration, construction inspection and construction certification services.
The newest cell will be the fourth solid waste cell at the county landfill. As per the recently signed agreement, Barton and Loguidice should have engineering, bidding and installation of required water quality testing wells due to the expansion of the landfill completed by June to assure compliance with New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) regulations.
Actual construction of the project – estimated to cost the county between $3 million and $3.5 million – is not projected until June, 2015. Bids for construction are expected to go out in January, 2015.
“This is a process we have to go through every five to ten years for the landfill,” said Shawn Fry, director of Chenango County Public Works. “It’s a long process that we are starting early so we will hopefully have plenty of time to address some of the concerns of the DEC and still stay on schedule.”
Engineering and cell four design will also include necessary updates to existing structures at the landfill. Barton and Loguidice have contracted with the he county for design, engineering and continuing development at the landfill multiple times over the last 25 years.
Fry explained the county landfill is permitted by the DEC to have a maximum of seven cells. “The third cell was small, about three acres,” he added. “The fouth one will be bigger though, so hopefully it will last longer before we have to think about developing a fifth cell.”
Depending on the rate at which landfill cells fill up – which is often influenced by largescale building projects in the county, such as demolition of the old New York State Veterans’ Home in Oxford in 2010, said Fry – county officials expect another 30-40 years before reaching capacity at the Pharsalia landfill.
In addition to authorizing an agreement with Barton and Loguidice for engineering and development of the fourth cell, the Board of Supervisors also approved a year-end transfer of funds to set aside to close the Pharsalia landfill facility. The New York State Department of Conservation requires set aside funds to close the facility once it reaches capacity.
While there is still room in all three cells, the county is already scheming a strategy to pay the costs of having a fifth cell built at the landfill, an undertaking expected to top $4 million in eight to ten years down the road.