Ten Sleep Solid Waste District begins work on transfer station

TEN SLEEP – The Ten Sleep Solid Waste District has begun groundwork for a new transfer facility, located at the entrance to the landfill property, scheduled to open in November 2017. The remaining property will be retained by the district, and the current landfill pits will be reclaimed and filled.

Due to the ongoing construction, the landfill is advising that as of June 2017, the facility will no longer accept household waste, but will take construction waste. By December, all waste will go to the transfer station, and remaining refuse, including construction garbage and metal, will be transferred off the property.

The district is advising that all annual permits purchased in 2016 will be honored for services.

Due to prioritization by the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, municipal unlined landfills across Wyoming are facing either mandatory transfer of refuse, or closure. For Ten Sleep the landfill has until June 2017 to install a scale, and prepare for all trash from that point forward to be trailered and transferred, effectively closing the decades-old pit. The landfill will be allowed to take construction materials until December 2017.

A 2009 Integrated Solid Waste Planning report by the DEQ indicates that groundwater contamination caused by unlined landfills have caused operating costs to rise well beyond the budgets of most small local governments in Wyoming. As a result, the DEQ decided to phase out unlined landfills, replacing the system with transfer stations to relocate municipal and private garbage to larger, fee-based landfills.

The Ten Sleep Solid Waste District maintains operating hours of 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Thursday and Tuesday; 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. Saturday. The Solid Waste District holds their monthly board meeting on the second Wednesday of the month at the Ten Sleep Senior Center. All meetings are open to the public.