Talache Dumpsters to close by October

KEITH KINNAIRD

News editor

Bonner County still wants to phase out unattended waste collection sites

SANDPOINT — It's not a matter of if all the unattended waste collection sites in Bonner County will be closed.

It's only a matter of when.

County commissioners decided Tuesday to close down the Dumpster site on Talache Road by Oct. 1. But the site could be closed sooner than that if people keep trashing the place, according to Leslie Marshall, the county's Solid Waste director.

"Right now we have until October — as long as it does not get any worse than it already is," she said.

Commissioners opted to close the site because it is being abused by some residents, contractors and visitors. Marshall said the site has recently become inundated with illegally dumped construction waste, which is clogging Dumpsters. What doesn't fit in the containers usually winds up on the ground, she said.

If the site is closed, Talache area residents would be forced to dump their trash at the attended trash collection site on U.S. Highway 95 at Dufort Road.

Residents have stayed the death sentence of the Green Owl Dumpster site north of Priest River, which was also being abused. But neighboring residents have been monitoring and cleaning the site in the hope that it might be kept open.

"Residents are the only thing keeping Green Owl open," Marshall said.

The county closed the Hanna Flats Dumpster site near Priest Lake last year amid problems with bears and abuse. Containers designed to foil bears were installed, but some people insisted on tampering with the bear countermeasures so they could watch them feed.

The site was also a headache for the U.S. Forest Service and was not used by enough people to keep it manned and open, Marshall said.

This year, the county plans to place attendants on a temporary basis at Dumpster sites on Garfield Bay Cutoff Road and on Highway 57 between Priest River and Nordman. Marshall said the Talache site is too small to be fenced in or monitored by an attendant.

Commissioners have for years said the ultimate goal is to gradually close unattended sites and replace them centrally located attended sites. Such a move was recommended by an advisory committee in the early 1990s.

Attended sites suffer less abuse and they give users the opportunity to recycle and segregate trash, which reduces the amount of waste that's gathered for shipping to a landfill in Oregon.

But it's not clear how long it will take to phase out unattended sites.

"It's just depends financially how quickly we can do it," said Marshall.