Facility will also be moved soon as part of airport plans
The city of Columbia’s rubbish pit on Airport Road as of this week will now be open on Saturdays.
Mayor Justin McKenzie announced that the new hours are 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays and Monday through Thursday from 6 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. It will be closed on Fridays.
“One of the biggest complaints that we received was that people were not able to take items to the landfill on Saturdays,” he said.
The location, which will need to change soon due to the multi-million dollar airport runaway expansion project, was also discussed at a recent Board of Aldermen meeting. Aldermen voted to begin applying for permitting for a new location but have not made a decision definitively about where to move.
“We were hoping to get it relocated by sometime next year,” Engineer Jeff Dungan said. “In order to get some of the funding, we really need to get it relocated by the end of this year. The mayor has suggested that we talk about it. The current landfill is 4.3 miles from the city center and is on 19 acres. It costs about $160,000 to operate annually. It receives about 10,000 cubic yards annually – that may be a bit of a high estimate. Your closure cost and timeline that we’ve estimated is about $75,000 and about 90 days would be the fastest to close it.”
Dungan said that the city will not want to close the facility until an alternative is in place.
“Option 1 is a rubbish/waste processing facility that could be located on about 6 acres at the transfer facility (located on Mississippi 586 in Foxworth),” he said. “It is land that is under lease currently by the city. It is about 5 ½ miles from the city center. The average annual cost of operation, using a very conservative estimate, is about $160,000, which is what you are currently paying. The planning and construction costs would be about $60,000 and it would take about 90 days. Option 2, which would be just another pit, could be located on several potential pieces of property. One is a site north of town that is about 40 acres and about 7.1 miles from the center of the city. Annual cost of operation costs would be about the same, $160,000, but the planning, acquisition, construction and permitting costs are about $250,000 and about a six-month process.”
The board continued to discuss the pros and cons, and after about 20 minutes of back and forth, Ward 4 Alderman Mike Smith asked if they were ready to make decision.
“If we’ve already got this lease, we won’t have to look at buying or leasing property,” he said. “That sounds better to me.”
A motion was made by Smith to approve the professional services contract with Dungan Engineering for the purpose of making the application for moving the existing rubbish site to a new site.
The Board approved the motion 4-0, with Alderman-at-Large Edward Hough not present due to a family emergency.
