Council talks garbage and how they should get it to the dump

Let's put first things first, council members said.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The city needs to address the immediate problem of handling its garbage before it considers construction of a transfer station, city council members said.
"To me, talking about building anything is so premature," said Councilwoman Helen Rucker, D-at large, at the Thursday meeting of council's health and welfare committee.
"If Warren Recycling's license is in jeopardy, and we need to be transferring our trash somewhere, that's what we need to have on the table," she said, referring to the Warren Recycling Inc. transfer station the city now uses.
Councilman Andrew Barkley, D-3rd, also said the short-term issue of contingencies in case WRI closes needs to be thoroughly examined before the long-term question of building and operating the city's own transfer station should be approached.
"If I could ask any one thing, it's to slow this process down, and let's separate the two issues," Barkley said.
Council members were discussing a newly introduced ordinance, sponsored by Councilman James Pugh, known as "Doc," D-6th, that would authorize hiring an engineering firm to study the feasibility of having a city-owned solid-waste transfer station.
Pugh, who is health and welfare committee chairman, is an advocate of having a city-owned transfer station.
He estimates the city can build a transfer station for $500,000 and equip it for an additional $200,000.
How this works
City employees, who collect garbage in city-owned trucks, now take it to the WRI transfer station, where it is loaded onto larger trucks to be taken to Browning-Ferris Industries' Poland landfill in Mahoning County.
The city pays WRI $1 million a year for the transferring and subsequent hauling and dumping of its garbage into the landfill, Pugh said.
Acting upon the recommendation of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, the city health board has proposed denial of WRI's 2006 transfer station license. But the WRI facility continues to operate pending a final decision by the board.
If the operators of the WRI facility lose their license, Mayor Michael O'Brien said the city would begin using the closest transfer station -- Total Waste Logistics in Girard -- on an emergency basis. The city would then seek to rent or buy and operate the WRI facility, he said.
Because City Auditor David Griffing and Robert Stahl, a city accountant and compliance coordinator, are now researching the costs of establishing a city-run transfer station, Pugh said he may ask that his ordinance calling for an outside study be tabled.