Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

GP Satisfied; District May Take Pellets

Pelletizing garbage was the hot topic at the Upper Southwest Regional Solid Waste Management District during its regular meeting in June.

According to Joe Ball, director of the Upper Southwest, Georgia Pacific has not done its final test burn yet, but the company is basically satisfied with the data it has to date on using fuel pellets made of garbage.

Part of the problem, Ball said, is GP has an auger-type of feeding system to its boilers. The company, he told the board, is concerned with the auger tearing up the pellets and creating a mess. However, everything looks good so far.

For several months the Upper Southwest has been looking into this agreement with GP on using garbage pellets as fuel for the timber company.

Ball said the cost of equipment for Upper Southwest will be about $3.25 million, and will include the expansion of a building. This cost also includes the purchase of two pelletizing machines, which can create 250 tons of pellets per day.

The design plan, Ball said, also allows for expansion.

But, the problem is the Upper Southwest district doesn't generate this much garbage. This means another source of trash must be found.

Ball has been in contact with Paul Thompson in Garland County, who is with the Southwest Central Regional Solid Waste Management District.

This district, composed of Garland, Clark and Hot Spring counties, currently has a contract with a Saline County landfill. However, this contract will run out in Sept. 1997, and the district has been informed the rates will be raised significantly should it remain with Saline County.

Due to the increased tipping fees, the district's board of directors is looking at other ways to get rid of its garbage, including the possibility of building its own landfill.

However, the landfill will cost between $5 and $8 million to construct.

Because of these problems, the two districts are looking at joining forces and working together. While the Upper Southwest would handle the pelletizing, the Southwest Central has a recycling center in place in Hot Springs. A merger between the two could be beneficial to all counties involved.

According to Nevada County Judge John Barham, Georgia Pacific is expected to let the Upper Southwest District know of the test burn results before the July meeting.

He said GP should tell the district what the BTU of the pellets are, and roughly how much fuel the company will need for its purposes.

Barham and Ball said if everything works out with GP and the Southwest Central District, the pelletizing process can reduce the amount of trash going into the landfill by 40 percent.

"We expect landfill prices to keep going up," Ball said. "This is why this will be so effective. Also, there are more regulations to comply with. It just gets tougher and tougher (to operate a landfill)."

Barham said Nevada County's contribution to the class I landfill in Nashville has steadily been increasing this year.

In January, the county sent 267 tons to the landfill. This amount rose to 272 tons in February and 309 tons in March. April's contribution dropped slightly to 305 tons, while May's total was 407 tons.

All class IV waste generated in Nevada County goes to the local landfill.

Barham said the amount going into the local fill has also been rising this year. In January 795 tons were disposed of. This rose to 1,057 tons in February, and 1,180 tons in March. April saw 1,961 tons and May had 2,265 tons.

"This confirms what I thought was happening," Barham said. "We're picking up more and more garbage."