Bigfork waste to be diverted to Somers and Creston

Flathead County Solid Waste Department plans to consolidate green box sites including the closure of the site located on Montana Highway 83.

It won’t happen right away, the plan is to make it happen within the next six months to a year. Everyone who currently uses the Bigfork site, will be diverted to the sites in Somers and Creston.

The plan also calls for the Lakeside green box site to be closed at the end of its lease with the Montana Department of Transportation in 2013.

The reasons for wanting to close the Bigfork green box site are many said the head of the solid waste department Dave Prunty.

It’s not fenced, gated or manned, so waste is visible from the highway, they get trash in recycling piles and often are forced to pick up hazardous waste.

“People don’t follow the rules,” Prunty said. “We end up with 55 gallon barrels of unknown substances.”

He said for every piece of metal or every appliance dropped off in the metals pile, there’s a piece of furniture or a tire also dropped into the pile. Or people drop off yard waste that could be used as bio-fuel for making energy, if the site was set up the way the solid waste department wants it to operate.

Prunty said safety is also a huge concern for people dropping off or leaving the site because the line of sight up and down the highway is minimal at best.

Flathead County leases the site from the Montana Department of Transportation and Prunty said making changes to the site such as fencing it off would only make the site smaller, because it is surrounded by private property.

Community Foundation for a Better Bigfork board president Paul Mutascio isn’t convinced that the county has looked over all their options for fixing the issues they currently have with the site and he’s concerned about how the extra 10 miles of driving will affect residents who use the Bigfork dump site.

“Where will all that trash go?” Mutascio said. “Word is the Bigfork dumpsite is one of the most heavily used sites in the valley.”

In the solid waste department’s strategic management plan they adopted in 2009, the waste and recycling summary shows Bigfork is the second busiest dump site in the valley. The only one used more is the Columbia Falls green box site, which is manned, gated and set up to transport green waste for bio-fuel.

Bigfork collected 3,669 tons of waste in 2008, Columbia Falls collected 7,474 tons and the next closest was the Creston dumpsite with 3,008 tons.

Prunty said he is confident that the sites in Creston and Somers have the capacity to handle the extra waste that would be generated by closing the Bigfork site.

Bigfork isn’t the only site the strategic plan called to close or consolidate with other sites. The Kila and Marion sites have already been consolidated into one site located halfway between the two areas west of Kalispell.

The remote sites in Nyack, Denny’s and Essex, northeast of West Glacier, will also eventually be closed.

Prunty said the county’s plan is to eventually man all the green box sites they have, give them all the same hours and operate them all in the same manner.

Before the district closes the Bigfork site, they are planning on having a public meeting with area residents. That will happen in the next month or so, Prunty said.

The purpose of the meeting would be to inform residents of the county’s plans for consolidation and the reasoning behind it, to answer any questions residents might have and allow for discussion on the site.

“People will get to speak their issues,” Prunty said.