Landfill reopening ceremony set

The company wants to be the national waste-by-rail leader.

ALLIANCE — A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be at 10 a.m. Friday for the grand reopening of the Central Waste landfill, 12003 Oyster Road, Smith Township, Mahoning County.

An open house will continue at the 1,400-acre landfill until 3 p.m. that day.

Earlier this year, the Western Reserve Port Authority and the county commissioners approved issuance of $45 million in bonds, allowing TransLoad America, the landfill’s new owner, to borrow that amount at low interest to fund its acquisition and expansion of the landfill, which will eventually employ 30 to 40 people as laborers and heavy equipment operators.

A 35-cents-per-ton host agreement with TLA is expected to generate about $196,000 in revenue for the county in the first year, and revenues could grow in a few years to $1 million annually, according to Jim Petuch, director of the county’s Green Team (recycling division).

Among those in attendance at the open house will be David Stoller, chief executive officer of TransLoad America; Anthony Traficanti, chairman of the Mahoning County commissioners; and Val Winters, Smith township trustee. Stoller will present a $50,000 check from the company to Winters to go toward a sewer system upgrade.

The company said it expects the Central Waste facility to handle 2,000 tons of waste per day. In addition to accepting waste by truck, the facility has a new on-site rail spur, which can store up to 50 railcars.

“The facility is a significant step in TransLoad’s strategic plan to become the national leader in the waste by rail business,” Stoller said in a news release. The landfill accepts municipal solid waste [garbage], constructional and demolition debris and nonhazardous industrial waste.

The open house will include landfill tours and a slide presentation on TLA’s waste-baling technology for minimizing odor and leakage while transporting baled garbage by rail to the landfill.

The landfill stopped taking large volumes of waste in February 2004 because the previous owners, the Oreskovich family, were running out of space; and only minimal amounts of waste were accepted until TLA took in its first load June 22, 2007, said Scot Evans, Central waste’s general manager. The New Jersey-based TLA bought Central Waste last year after the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency granted a permit to expand the dormant landfill.

Under the present permit, the landfill has enough space to meet its anticipated needs for seven to eight years, and it expects to apply for another expansion permit to allow for operation after that time, Evans said.