Transfer Station Director Rollin Schmidt told Marion County commissioners Monday that a public input meeting on the regional solid-waste plan is planned for 11:20 a.m. Monday, March 23.
The meeting will be in the courthouse commission room with the commissioners present.
Schmidt, who is in charge of writing the most recent regional solid waste plan update, reviewed final application to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment with the commissioners for operation of a county-administered construction and demolition landfill at the Martin Marrietta Quarry north of Marion on land owned by Rocky Hett.
Schmidt said a KDHE official told him the site is one of the better C&D landfill sites he has seen with holes from rock excavation already there, and plenty of waste-dirt fill material on hand.
Schmidt said the county owes appreciation to its consulting engineer, Jack Chappelle of Overland Park, who worked on the KDHE plant at no charge after years of serving the county on closing the old landfill, working on the regional solid waste plan and other issues.
Schmidt said KDHE requires an engineer to sign off on the project.
Estimates for constructing the landfill are coming in at $90,000 to $120,000, Schmidt said.
Dallke figured that on Schmidt?s figure of 2,241 tons of C&D waste going through the transfer station last year, at a cost of $31.50 a ton to dispose of, having the landfill might take $88,000 annually off the price tag of hauling C&D out of county.
Schmidt said he had figured that the landfill could be justified by disposing of 3,000 tons there annually.
Holub confirmed with Schmidt that Marion County could take waste from other counties at a profit, thus helping keep disposal cheaper for its own citizens. He said Marion County has helped keep disposal cheaper for people in other counties by taking its waste to them.
The commissioners took a rebid on noxious weed from Schmidt after he found that one party on last week?s bid had offered a generic herbicide not labeled for pasture use.
The bid went to Markley Service of Marion for $3,371.20 for annual quantities of Surfa?cant, Sahara DG, Milestone and Escort herbicides over competitive bids of $3,498.52 from Ag Service of Hillsboro, and $4,225.96 from the cooperatives at Hillsboro and Tampa.
Emergency Management
Michelle Abbott-Becker, communications and emergency management director, said the first storm-spotter meeting of the year will be at 6:30 p.m. March 25, in the new Marion High School auditorium.
She said a communications center trailer complete with telephones, fax and computer equipment has been finished for the county in Salina. The trailer could become headquarters for any county department destroyed in an emergency, she said.
She is working on a 100 percent grant sought with other entities through the state for a speaker system for tornado sirens at Marion County Lake.
They could also be used to give verbal directions on where to go to the typical transient recreational crowd that comes there, she said.
Abbott-Becker said she has been working with Tony Rangel, architect from Law-Kingdon in Wichita, to plan moving the communication center in the jail exchanging places with jail personnel.
She expects homeland security funds for grants to be going down in the current economic situation.
In coming up with $3,750 each from various departments for county aerial mapping, Abbott-
Becker discovered she had budgeted for both communications and emergency departments so a deficit left by noxious weeds not participating may be covered.
Among other offices involved for shares at the same price are planning and zoning, appraiser, emergency medical services, road and bridge and health.
Other business
The commissioners approved making neighborhood revitalization tax credits retroactive to 2006 for Gary Vaughn on a farm building at 2375 Jade. The decision was made because of confusion in transition of department heads at the time he was building a new house, also in the program, at the location.
Appraiser Cindy Magill said the tax funds involved could be $2,000 annually.
The commissioners approved a resolution to close 180th between Kanza and Limestone subject to observation by the commissioners.
The commissioners received a letter from Dickinson County concurring in leaving a bridge the counties share maintenance of north of Ramona open at a weight limit of three tons as its condition warrants rather than the 20-tons limit at its construction in the early 1900s.
County Clerk Carol Maggard said the county department heads are discussing purchase of a 13-unit apartment house style mailbox and pedestal for $1,300 rather than have multiple departments rent post office boxes every year. The rentals are amounting to more than $1,000 annually, she said.
The commissioners approved a road and bridge transport fuel bid of $10,209 from Cooperative Grain & Supply of Hillsboro for 5,000 gallons of diesel and 2,000 gallons of unleaded gasoline over a competitive bid of $10,514 from Cardie Oil of Tampa.
The bid included 4,000 gallons of diesel in tank three at $1.400 a gallon for $5,880, 1,000 gallons of diesel in tank one at $1.219 a gallon for $1,219, and the 2,000 gallons of unleaded gasoline for $1.555 a gallon at $3,110.
The respective per gallon prices from Cardie were $1.515, $1.258 and $1.598.
