Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Solid Waste Authority To Help Center

Nevada County Recycling Center will receive $400 a month for a lease approved by the Nevada County - Prescott Solid Waste Authority.

Members of the authority met for the second time in 2000 on Thursday, November 30.

Members are composed of: Nevada County Judge James Roy Brown; JPs Adron Dobber' Hicks, Gary Lewis and George Clary; Prescott Mayor Howard Taylor; and council members Danny Beavert and Karen Ward. Ward and Taylor missed the meeting due to prior commitments.

Nevada County Day Service Center Director Prissy Traczewitz and Recycling Center director Elaine Williams met with the authority to discuss funding.

Traczewitz reported to the group that the recycling center saved the authority several thousand dollars during 1999 by recycling over 270 tons.

She reported 71.8 tons of newspapers were recycled along with 198.6 tons of cardboard, 10.7 tons of office paper and half a ton of aluminum.

Without the recycling center, these items would have been dumped in the Nevada County Landfill which would have disposed of the items in the Upper Southwest Arkansas Upper Regional Solid Waste Management District at a cost of about $26 per ton.

This figures to a savings to the local landfill and its authority of more than $7,000.

Traczewitz told authority members the recycling center had secured other funding in past years to upgrade equipment which might have been unsafe.

She said with a budget, the center can now plan to make purchases of permanent pallets and upgrade the work area as needed.

The recycle center is located in the old Arkla Gas building on East Second Street, across from Gilbert Lumber Company.

During the meeting, the authority also changed the percentages of cost to the county and city of Prescott based on usage.

Accountant Carl Dalrymple told the authority 55% of the trash dumped in the landfill belonged to the city and 45% belonged to the county.

Under the original interlocal agreement which forms the solid waste authority, the costs were to be split 50/50 until usage could be determined after the first year.

Nevada County and Prescott entered into the agreement in 1993 and figures indicate the 55/45 usage split has almost been a constant figure since opening.

Authority members voted to change the percentage each entity pays according to its usage.

The same 55/45 split is applied to all costs incurred by the authority including the lease approved during the same meeting with the recycle center.

Traczewitz had told the authority the split, as near as could be determined by the center, was 75% to 80% from Prescott with the rest coming from rural Nevada County.

Voters in the early 1990s approved a one-cent sales tax to fund the Nevada County Landfill.

Currently the county and city use the funds received to fund not only their part of the landfill but for other purposes also.

Nevada County funds its part of the Economic Development office as well as part of the judge's salary from the tax money.