Loan refusal changes timeline for landfill

The council came together for a workshop with DEQ permitting agent Richard Lemm and Craig McComie with the Office of Cease and Transfer for an update on where the town is regarding the schedule for permitting a future for the landfill.

HDR Engineering's Heath Turbiville called for the meeting to answer a couple of questions from the council as well as address any concerns from the agency.

Rural Development, the anticipated loan agency for the preliminary work at the site, will not provide the funding because the town's median income in too high. They will, though, fund the construction later.

The secondary source of funding to which the town will apply is the State Revolving Loan Program,

"However," said Turbiville, "that kind of pushes the timeframe out because of meetings and deadlines. By this time we were hoping to be working through some of the site investigation."

Turbiville told the agents the site has almost two years left of space on the current expansion, but the town is approaching the time deadline much sooner, "So we need to request an extension on time or [another] vertical expansion if that's a possibility." The current permit expires in January.

Lemm answered, "If we have space, we can decide if we want to just do a permanent [time] extension or actually go for a vertical expansion at that time. I don't see any roadblocks in the way of that."

Both Lemm and Mcomie assured council the full assistance of the DEQ in the town's effort to move forward in either the creating the new cells or a transfer station.