Posted: Monday, March 20, 2006 12:00 am
MUD LAKE, Idaho (AP) - Mud Lake may become the newest destination for garbage from Jackson.
Officials in Wyoming's Teton County are considering a plan to ship about 85 tons of trash a day to the Circular Butte landfill in Jefferson County, Idaho
In Jackson and surrounding Teton County, rising property values, a growing population and water-quality concerns are forcing officials to look elsewhere for garbage disposal.
The solution may be 120 miles to the west, where land is cheaper and dryer weather eliminates the need for garbage liners at dumps.
"Water is the killer when you're trying to deal with long-term trash storage," Teton County engineer Craig Jackson told the Idaho Falls Post Register.
Liners are used so moisture doesn't filter though garbage and pollute groundwater. But underlying clay and limited rainfall at Mud Lake makes a liner unnecessary, said Stacy Short, a remediation scientist with Idaho's Department of Environmental Quality.
Teton already uses the Mud Lake site on holidays, when the facility they normally use is closed.
The Mud Lake landfill, owned by Jefferson County, accepts about 10,000 tons of trash per year at roughly $22 per ton. It's practically empty because while it was designed for nine eastern Idaho counties, it serves only five.
Teton County, Wyo., ships about 31,000 tons of garbage a year. The county currently sends most of it to a site in Sublette County in western Wyoming, but Mud Lake's water-handling ability gives it an edge despite the higher costs of fuel, Jackson said.
"Our potential liability 50 years from now is almost zero," he said.
Jackson isn't the only community looking to Mud Lake to address garbage needs. Teton County, Idaho, is also considering a plan to ship trash to Circular Butte instead of expanding a local landfill.
The water issue is a factor for that county as well. Its current garbage site is near Teton Creek and as the dump nears capacity, the county has to consider expanding that site, building a new dump or shipping its trash.
Teton County, Idaho, "is generally a poor place for a landfill," Short said.