By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

If county commissioners were back to the drawing board on a transfer station last week, they are even further back after Monday’s meeting.

Jack Chappelle with Engineering Solutions and Design told commissioners it would be more expensive for the county to build a transfer station and continue to haul solid waste elsewhere than it would to have cities and rural residents arrange their own hauling.

“Typically what happens in most counties is that the county leaves it up to everyone to come up with their own solution,” Chappelle said.

Other landfills are available, each with its own tipping fee.

Butler, Harvey, Saline, Dickinson, and McPherson County each have landfills, though McPherson County is reluctant to accept solid waste from other counties.

Municipalities often do their own trash collection or do as Peabody does and hire a private hauler, he said.

Marion city administrator Roger Holter, who attended the meeting, concurred that the only thing the county was obligated to do was to have a plan.

“This is information we did not have prior,” commissioner Kent Becker said.

Bruce Boettcher of BG Consultants, an engineering group that has proposed several options for designing a new transfer station, proposed yet another plan for a transfer station on Washington St.

This one, at a projected cost of $2.9 million, compared to the $4.6 million cost of the first design selected by commissioners, would be less costly because it would require less dirt work than the one originally proposed.

Wanting to consider all options again, including the option of not building a transfer station, commissioners asked Boettcher to submit a bill for the work he’s done so far.