In 2013, Community Waste Solutions was making strides to improve its FAA Road landfill after years of difficulties meeting state environmental regulations.

The company had hired Haines Friends of Recycling founder Burl Sheldon as a consultant and Mike Dorris as operations manager, and improved scores received during annual state inspections from 47 of 100 in 2011 to 93 of 100 in 2013.

It improved drainages, complied with many water testing requirements, and cleaned up the landfill site, including securing an electric fence to keep bears out. It was composting sludge from the sewer plant by mixing with cardboard and had stopped landfilling “municipal solid waste,” or “MSW,” the industry name for mixed household trash.

Instead, it shipped MSW as well as recyclables to facilities in Washington state. Only construction debris was going into the ground.

“The fact is, the landfill is in order now,” said CWS president Tom Hall. “I don’t feel anybody can say we’re contaminating water or not meeting the requirements of the state.”

The landfill scored a 91 following an inspection last June, but recent employees say operations have been on a slide for the past year. The employees include Dorris, who worked four years as operations manager, and Jonathan Richardson, who worked at the company four months this fall as a truck driver and laborer.

Richardson described the company as a shoestring operation at a Dec. 19 meeting of the Haines Borough’s new solid waste working group.

The company didn’t separate or aggregate curbside mixed recyclables it collected from businesses and it switched license plates on a garbage truck to get an unsafe but operating truck on the road, Richardson testified. A phone technician who moved here from Tennessee four years ago, Richardson said he finally started using his private vehicle to pick up trash at the U.S. border station, then quit when he was told he wouldn’t be compensated.

The former workers say shipments of recyclables and municipal solid waste to facilities in the Lower 48 stopped in the spring. As much as 10 tons of unprocessed waste and recyclables were surreptitiously landfilled to meet the June inspection, Dorris said. And sludge composting now is being done with mixed household waste, making decomposition more difficult and raising questions of whether the final product is sufficiently clean of fecal residue.

Former operations manager Dorris said sludge composting works well with cardboard, but is more difficult when trash like plastics are mixed in. To meet compliance with regulations, the compost must maintain a high temperature for two weeks. “When I was there, those temperatures were never hit (using MSW),” Dorris said.

CWS also is landfilling sewage plant “screenings,” inorganic items flushed down toilets and drains that should be shipped to an advanced landfill in Washington, Dorris said. “That’s anything that anybody could possibly drop into a sink or a toilet and doesn’t go into the bay. (Used) needles are in it, you name it.”

Richardson, who worked as a garbage truck driver and laborer, said mixed recyclables collected from businesses around town are mixed with garbage, and – other than large items like a garbage bag full of paper – not separated out. Recycling stockpiled at the landfill are items brought to the site by customers who’ve collected them in bulk, he said.

Tom Hall declined comment on this story, but cited his company’s high score on the recent inspection. Company spokesperson Sally Garton confirmed this week that the company stopped shipping MSW. She said that happened in June due to price increases by shipper Alaska Marine Lines and waste handler Waste Management.

“We have started processing garbage in-house, yes. And we’ve invested money in a new processing line that’s being put together in California. This isn’t a bad thing, what we’re doing. We’re reinvesting in new equipment to get our processing more streamlined,” which should reduce rates, she said.

Garton said the company has not landfilled municipal solid waste and she has no knowledge of the company burying unprocessed waste to avoid a critical inspection. “I wasn’t involved in operations before (Dorris) left. I’m following the letter of our permit and trying to do everything environmentally responsible.”

She said the company had been trying to compost MSW but recent cold weather kept the company from reaching required temperatures for decomposition.

“We are following the EPA rules on composting. It was working until the deep freeze. We’ve been meeting all our (required) temperatures and so forth,” Garton said.

Garton also said she had no information the company landfilled sewage screenings. “As far as I know, we didn’t.”

She said the company hasn’t stopped recycling, but has stopped shipping it out while waiting for compacting equipment like balers to come on board to make recycling economic. “We’re storing it at this point. We have stockpiled plastic and aluminum and are waiting for our new equipment.”

Responding to Richardson’s claim, Garton said single-stream recycling is dumped on the shop floor at the landfill, and bags of clearly recyclable materials are being stored for eventual shipment to a Seattle facility that sorts items.

Richardson said items like recyclable plastic bottles and steel cans are routinely landfilled.

Richardson and Dorris said Hall appears to be fighting an uphill battle to keep the company profitable and in compliance with regulations, although it’s not clear to them why it’s so difficult.

Dorris said acquisition of waste competitor Acme Transfer brought a big income stream to the company, but also increased waste volumes to the point of making shipping south prohibitively expensive. “(Tom) Hall wants to do the right thing, but in the interval of getting there, he does a lot of wrong things,” said Dorris.

Said Richardson: “I don’t know if he’s taking too much (money) out of it or he’s not making any money. I don’t know. I didn’t get to look at the books.”

Sandra Woods, who regulates the landfill for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, said the company can resume burying materials at the landfill, but will need to change its operations plan to compost most of its MSW. It will also have to submit a plan for sewage plant screenings.

Composting MSW would make the landfill the largest waste composting operation in Southeast and the only major one attempting to compost MSW, Woods said.

Most Southeast communities still barge waste south, Woods said. Juneau operates a large landfill. Skagway incinerates its trash but is looking for an alternative, Woods said.

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