Trego's Mountain Ear

In case you missed the community meeting, this past Sunday at the TFS Community Hall, Diane Carlton who arranged for the meeting, has handily provided a summary document as well:

Notes from the first, quarterly Trego, Fortine and Stryker
Community Town Hall Meeting. January 12, 2025. 3:00 – 5:00 pm

Many thanks to Terry Groesbeck for providing the synopsis notes. I’ve
done a bit of tidying where needful but she did such an excellent job, I’ve
left the notes largely as is. I have thoughts and noodles of my own but this
is such a large document as is, I might post those in a separate post. The
meeting went well but there are some concerns.

Also, as noted in the presentation notes, the attendees voted to hold a
regular town hall meeting at a quarterly interval, for the members of the
Trego, Fortine and Stryker community. Other county communities are
encouraged to do something similar and while we will not ask noncommunity members to leave so long as we have enough room in the hall
for our community members, I will only advertise the meeting on our
community BB and the TFS Community Hall site.

The Meeting Synopsis:
The agenda and then a presentation was given by Diane Hackett Carlton.
(see the end of this document for the agenda and presentation.)

Then Noel Duram, our new District 3 Commissioner was given time to
speak. Here are notes on his information:

County Commissioner Noel Duram introduced. (3:30p)
ND: 50-60 years ago we dumped our trash in the woods or burned it; what’s still left is glass and cans; more plastic is being dumped today (which doesn’t decompose).

Eureka is a transfer station, not a landfill.

Libby has an expansion going on which must follow DEQ rules. Cost is $2.1 Mil to operate both the Libby and Eureka landfills (before associated costs).

Taxes pay for $1.9 mil of that cost ($150 per household).

Some of the missing money is provided for from the Lincoln County budget.

There is concern about corporate entities taking over our disposal needs.

In order to keep trash amounts to a minimum, we need to encourage recycling and not dumping so much cardboard.

Our container needs have increased (i.e. Trego from 8 to 12 units); we have growing pains as local populations are increasing.

Don’t dump things that can’t be compacted! Cardboard must be flattened.

Too difficult for Evergreen to assess what they will be picking up.

Our County site attendant is picking up the overflow and excess debris that Evergreen is responsible for. A breach of contract ND claims there is nothing we can do anything about out of concern Evergreen will simply walk away and not provide any services.

West Kootenai is open 7 days/week and gets hauled 2x/week. This is true for the Upper Yakk site.

All Evergreen trucks come up from Libby and return to Libby. (We are not able to dump at Kalispell as it is in a different county.)

ND said there is a $35/month curbside service that is available “in town.”

Even with curbside service there will still be a possibility of having wildlife problems.

ND advised us that we were very close to not having ANY green box service as of 11/09 if Evergreen didn’t agree to the new contract.

Evergreen is the only available provider because of MTPSC (Montana Public Service Commission) restrictions.

ND claims that there is no way to force our will on the system; that we need to work with them over the next two years.

We can’t hold Evergreen for breach of contract as they will probably back out. (Tell us to “pound sand”) Waste Management company covers the rest of the State.

In the meantime, we need to come up with a long term solution. We need another service available and in place if we force our hand on Evergreen.

Noel has said that he will be in support of the County attendants and will not allow them to be abused.

He’s seen violators dumping construction debris and appliances. This is illegal dumping and while Evergreen, per the contract, is allowed to pick those things up, likely they will not. We need to help discourage our neighbors from this activity. He is for the reporting of illegal dumping to Noel Duram. There will be a sign at the green boxes with his contact information.

Evergreen can’t dump an overflowing container. Don’t overflow the containers! Apparently equipment can no longer dump into the trucks trash that is overflowing the containers or is not compactable, and the drivers are forbidden to do so.

If there is no room to dump your trash in the containers on the day you go to do so, Noel Duram tells us we should take our trash back home and try another day.
Sometimes the gates don’t open exactly on time but give them a break if they don’t open/close on time. Even if it’s inconvenient to you.

Overall, solid waste is a growing problem in the county. One idea is to get an incinerator but we can’t compromise air quality. Noel is checking out other countries’ methods and trying to implement them here.
The floor was then open to questions and comments. All asked of or directed to Noel
Duram.
Name? :

Why is cardboard filling up landfill? Who is handling?
$2.1 million seems excessive. Need to explain “growing pains”; haven’t we had green boxes for 11 years?

ND: This is year 1 of contract; not year 11 It’s 11 years we have had the Trego site. (Note: This is incorrect. It states quite clearly in the contract that this is a 2-year extension of the old, 10-year contract and that this year, 2024-2025, is year 11 and that the second year, year 12 is 2025-2026. We have had 10 years to know what kind of trash we are tossing and how much.)

One truck died in Eureka on Friday so it affected the schedule.

We have paid separately for cardboard recycling.

Noel reviewed and presented the balance sheet amounts for landfill for last year.

Our old green boxes that we owned have been amortized (those that were not salvageable) or acquired by Evergreen (2 and which are at the Libby Landll for carcass deposits by hunters.)

Kelvin Stinger: We need time to adjust to the new system. (comment only)

Lee Egebratten: Should we maybe consolidate Trego and Fortine sites?
ND: If Evergreen doesn’t agree we can’t ….?? Doesn’t know if closing one of sites will help but probably won’t happen until 2-year contract is up.

Sharon Wood: We have tried to reduce our waste; we don’t want to store garbage so why can’t we take it to the green boxes 7 days a week and have it picked up 3 days/week? Are we being punished? We still create the same amount of trash that we did before the contract changed.
ND: There will still be problems if gates are open 7 days/week and we only pick up 3 days/week. Noel claims that the boxes will ll in between hauling dates and would leave citizens with an inability to dump trash once that occurred. (There is some disagreement with that comment.)

Doreen Mee: Maybe we should have transfer boxes instead of 4-yard dump trucks.
ND: Thinks that is a good idea and is looking into it. However, we still need to build a site to accommodate transfer boxes so we don’t handle our trash multiple times.

Name?: Can we change the dates? What do we do if it’s overowing? What to do with cardboard
ND: Break down your cardboard; call someone when they’re overowing; or go to Fortine or Eureka if necessary (DO NOT put on ground and do not put on top). Or take the trash back home.

Erwin Dreissen: Was the $150/year fee meant to cover the hauling?
ND: It’s more of an average because there are sometimes no households and sometimes multiple households on one property tax bill. You need to get involved with your commissioners and vote for who you want to make the change. (This was an obscure comment and didn’t really answer the question.)

Jim Carlton: Talked to Letcher about $150/year being inadequate. Keeping garbage at your home can be dangerous and there are potential liability issues if someone is mauled by a bear because you can’t haul. We can address a bond issue and not deal with contract issues. (The bond idea was never acknowledged by Noel Duram but should be discussed.)
ND: Noel claims that other counties don’t have the same problems as we do. 75% of Lincoln County is Federally owned; our taxes are based on 8% of land area. Noel (personally) has been managing his trash but there are more people and more bears. We are stuck with the current contract so we need to reduce and manage our waste.

Nancy Wilkins: Auditors say DOR is not updating property tax information. (Quoted some references. I have a document she provided and will try to get that uploaded, later.)
ND: No one wants to have taxes updated after they build something; we know some records are incorrect but are working on correcting that.

Rob __?: Cardboard issue – is cardboard being recycled or just transferred?
ND: Bundled and transferred to Libby.

Todd Swan: Fire Dept has been provided the DOR information and there is a way to find out who is not paying for services. It will take some volunteers to go over the data sheets as DOR apparently will not assign anyone to do that.

Andrew (TFS FD): Worried about summer influx and people who can’t get to dumpsters will burn trash and start forest res or just toss the trash anywhere or over the fences when gates are closed. Suggested a 4-day service (Fri-Mon).
ND: May not be able to amend contract; can present to Evergreen and ask but probably won’t happen until November. (This means we are in for a hellish summer resident/tourist season in the meantime. The current schedule and boxes cannot possibly manage the increase in trash during that time frame. This was an honest observation that seems to have been brushed
aside.)

Name (Eureka)?: Has seen what Canada does and they seem to be managing ne. (It seems to be a type of transfer truck or station (?) that has openings in which one puts one’s trash. It gets compacted and then hauled off at intervals.)
ND: Agreed with that and said we need to look into that.

L. Hoffman: Did Evergreen give solutions for when pickup falls on a Holiday?
ND: Contract dictates how they will adjust for holidays; call Noel if you have a problem. He mentioned he would be willing to open gates on holidays since the attendant would have those
days off.

Diane: Can we have a volunteer sign up for open/close of site?
ND: No, but you can help attendant pick up trash around dumpsters any time you wish.

Tillie: Thanks for being our Commissioner; works for Friends of TFS Fire Dept.; knows that lots
of people are not paying their fair share.
ND: As he nds violators on the tax issue, he calls them on it.

Karen (Food Bank): Are we losing one day of pick up at the dumpsters? Please ll dumpsters responsibly. (Others who do this community outreach are pointing out that there is trash that needs to be dumped on those days and there is no place to store that trash unless it is left at the TFS Community Hall. Where would it be left? Who will come dump it on Sat?)
ND: We have asked questions and will be finding out answers.

Diane Carlton (wrap-up): 4:55p Would like to do Town Hall meeting every other month or every quarter with agenda items that need to be addressed by local politicians. Per show of hands; should be quarterly.
Adjourned at 5:00pm.