Bigfork ready to battle over green boxes

Determined to keep their green-box refuse site, Bigfork residents plan to ask the Flathead County Solid Waste Board for a three-year moratorium on further green-box closures to allow for a comprehensive study of how the county should collect trash.

The Solid Waste Board meets at 3 p.m. Tuesday at the landfill office building for its regular meeting, and agreed last month to listen to the Bigfork group’s concerns.

Bigfork area residents also will ask the board to keep the Bigfork green-box site open until a more thorough study can be completed and publicly vetted.

A strategic report for the county landfill recommends closing both the Bigfork and Lakeside green-box sites and consolidating services into staffed and fenced locations at Somers and Creston. The county has consolidated other outlying sites in recent years, largely to save money and provide safer facilities.

But the consolidations have been controversial as neighbors have pleaded to keep their green boxes in close proximity.

Land leased from the Montana Department of Transportation along Montana 83 houses the Bigfork green boxes, but the Solid Waste Board maintains there’s no room for expansion at the already crowded site. Illegal dumping of hazardous waste and commercial garbage have been chronic problems at the Bigfork site, according to county Public Works Director Dave Prunty.

Paul Mutascio, president of the Community Foundation for a Better Bigfork, said he and other Bigfork residents believe the county’s 2009 strategic study — on which the decision to close the Bigfork refuse site is based — is flawed and too narrow in scope.

“It only looked at ways to reduce the county’s direct solid waste operating costs,” Mutascio said. “It gave no consideration to the impacts these closures would have on the broader financial, economic and environmental issues of the Flathead community.

Prunty estimates consolidating the Bigfork and Lakeside sites will save the county about $60,000 a year.

Bigfork residents contend the study needs to take into consideration the financial and economic pressures that would be placed on citizens, plus the impact on public safety, recycling efforts and the environment.  

Mutascio estimated a private curbside pickup service could cost anywhere from $280 to $560 a year, while driving to the landfill or another refuse site means more time and gas money for Bigfork residents.

Bigfork resident Faith Brynie calculated it will cost the 3,000 households served by the Bigfork green boxes $546,000 in gasoline each year to drive to the Somers site. She based that calculation on two trips weekly for each household, with gas at $3.50 per gallon.

“We consider both of these alternatives to be a significant and hidden tax on our citizens, an unnecessary financial burden placed on [residents] by unelected officials,” Mutascio said.

Leases with the state for both the Bigfork and Lakeside sites were renegotiated last year for another 10 years. The county will pay $2,000 per year per site for the first five years, and then the lease can be re-evaluated by the state.

At its December meeting the Solid Waste Board promised to hold a public meeting in Bigfork this spring to further discuss consolidation plans before making a final decision.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.