City faces crisis over garbage

The city health board will meet at 3 p.m. today.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- With the Warren Recycling transfer station's license expiring at the end of the year, the city could be facing a garbage disposal crisis.
"This is something we need to address very seriously," Robert Pinti, deputy city health commissioner, told city council's health and welfare committee Tuesday.
"In 30 days, you need a transfer facility that is licenseable," he added.
The city's environmental services department picks up residential and commercial garbage in the city. The WRI transfer station is a place where garbage collected in city-owned trucks is loaded onto larger trucks to be taken to Browning-Ferris Industries Poland landfill.
"If you have no place to transfer your garbage, that obviously is an emergency," said Deputy City Law Director Jim Ries.
"In the short term, on an emergency basis, you'd have to enter into contract with some landfill or something to take it and then figure out what you want to do and get some sort of long-term contract," Ries told the committee.
Health board decision
The city health board must decide whether to issue a 2006 operating license for the Warren Recycling Inc. transfer station.
Last month, the Ohio EPA urged the board to postpone its decision pending the outcome of the agency's annual background check of the transfer station's operators.
Pinti said an Ohio EPA official promised Tuesday that the agency will fax him a letter on the matter before the health board's meeting at 3 p.m. today.
If the WRI facility isn't licensed and can't operate after Jan. 1, Renee Cicero, the city's environmental services manager, said the closest transfer station is Total Waste Logistics in Girard.
"That would be where we would probably have to take it on an emergency basis," she said.
Each of the city's eight garbage hauling trucks would have to make two daily round trips to that station over designated truck routes, she said.
If the city can't use the WRI station, overtime, fuel and vehicle maintenance costs will rise dramatically, Cicero said. "The trucks are not built for long haul," she added.
Own station
Councilman James ''Doc" Pugh, D-6th, committee chairman, advocated having the city establish its own transfer station, which he said could be done for less than $500,000.
But Pinti said it would take the city considerably longer than 30 days to build and open its own transfer station. The last estimate on the cost of building a transfer station was $3 million at least three years ago, he added.
"Who wants a transfer station in your ward?," asked Councilman Gary Fonce, D-at large, calling for a show of hands among his colleagues representing wards.
No council members raised their hands.