By Owen Boss
Staff Writer
NORTHAMPTON - The first of two public forums aimed at discussing a study outlining alternatives to expanding the Glendale Road landfill Monday night offered a crowd of area residents a closer look at the study from the people who created it.
The majority of the meeting, which drew about 30 local residents to the Community Room at John F. Kennedy Middle School, allowed representatives from Canada-based Stantec Consulting Service and HDR, of Omaha, Neb., to break down into layman's terms a 142-page report outlining the city's options.
The city's landfill, which provides for trash generated across the city and that of 16 other local communities, is currently scheduled to close in June 2011.
The report, which took the consulting firm nearly two years to complete at a cost of about $110,000, examines several options, though it makes no recommendations. The options include closing the landfill completely, starting a curbside collection program and having a third party take over landfill operations.
To clearly explain the complex report, the city's Board of Public Works arranged for John Murphy, a representative from Stantec, and Alan Cohen and Shawn Worster of HDR to present an hourlong PowerPoint presentation examining the costs associated with each option as well as how they came up with the numbers.
Also considered at the meeting were examples of new and emerging technologies used to control waste in other American cities and internationally. However, Cohen said implementing those technologies would be expensive and would be risky without being able to see how they would operate locally.
"When proven feasible, the emerging conversion technologies may be an important part of the solution but as it stands right now we don't think we can do it because it doesn't make sense for Northampton," Cohen said.
Because most regional landfills are also reaching capacity, sending waste to other removal sites in Massachusetts or out of state would prove to be an expensive option for local taxpayers, Worster said.
"An important point to remember when you look at alternatives to keeping the landfill open is that the closest other option to you is somewhere between 20 and 30 miles away," Worster said. "So the haul from the collection point to the disposal point would be 20 to 30 miles, as opposed to 4 miles if we use the landfill in Northampton."
Other area alternatives, Worster said, are landfills in South Hadley, Chicopee and Granby. While all three are scheduled to close shortly after the Northampton landfill, Worster noted that South Hadley may expand, and a location in Westminster will remain open through 2017.
Toward the end of the meeting, several residents asked representatives questions about the report, including Richard Guzowski of Nonotuck Street in Florence, who thought that predicting future costs based on likely projections could be misleading.
"If diesel fuel goes up to $6 or $8 a gallon in 20 years that could affect these numbers. Is that being taken into account at all or are you just assuming that this will continued on a curve as it has been going?" Guzowski asked.
The study, Cohen said, took into account sudden increases in fuel costs and considered several possible scenarios where transporting waste outside of the city would become much more expensive.
The DPW has set up a discussion group through Google where residents can read and discuss the alternatives report. That site is at www.groups.google.com/group/nton-swalts. The report can also be found at the Forbes and Lilly libraries.
Another forum, at the same time and location, has been scheduled for Sept. 14.
Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com
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