County mulling closure of Green Box site

By ALEX STRICKLAND/Bigfork Eagle

Faced with soaring operating costs and size restrictions at the leased site, Flathead County is considering closing Bigfork's Green Box site on Highway 83 just east of Streeter's Corner.

Public Works Director Dave Prunty said that since the site solid waste department has upgraded sites around the county — including ones at Somers and Creston — but that since the Bigfork site is leased on a Montana Department of Transportation easement, it's not practical to upgrade the site.

Public Works did install bumper rails recently in an effort to prevent people from cutting the corner at the entrance to the site, which was cracking the edges of the asphalt pad, Prunty said.

The county has a few targeted areas and Prunty said that they are currently looking at the western part of the county. They are considering closing the green box site at Marion and building an improved one in Kila. That plan has been met with a fair amount of resistance, Prunty said, and because of that project, other areas are not yet being worked on.

"We've got to get through the first one and see what happens," he said.

Bigfork resident Doug Averill has said that he believes the community would support a volunteer effort to clean up and improve the site, something he said was talked about years ago.

Averill said the idea at the time was to dig out some of the hillside behind the site and move the dumpsters back to enable a berm to be constructed along the highway to hide the site from view.

"At the time we had volunteers to do it," Averill said.

Prunty said he would be open to utilizing volunteer effort wherever possible, but held that the site restrictions at the current location make much improvement impossible.

Other areas in the valley scheduled to be assessed for closure include a series of three small sites in Badrock Canyon on Highway 2.

The decision is ultimately up to the public works board of directors, Prunty said, and after the Kila/Marion site is finished, he said he'll ask the board which area they would like to look at next.

That board is comprised of a county commissioner, representatives from the cities of Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls, a representative from the City/County Health Department as well two members-at-large.

The increasing price of fuel has already caused Prunty to exceed his fuel budget for this fiscal year, he said, and he's added more than $50,000 to next years budget in an attempt to account for oil prices.