Sixteen million dollars in today’s dollars.

That’s the “conservative estimate” the Botetourt Board of Supervisors says an agreement is worth to have County Waste of Southwest Virginia LLC (CWSV) take over the county’s landfill operation, close and cap the landfill, deal with recyclables and, more importantly, dispose of the stream of trash that comes from county residents and businesses for as long as the next 40 years.

The supervisors were scheduled to meet Tuesday evening to discuss the two Public/Private Educational Act (PPEA) proposals it had for handling the county’s trash, but that meeting was postponed Tuesday morning because two supervisors could not attend. The other three members were still scheduled to meet but only to either adjourn or continue the meeting.

The supervisors held a public hearing on County Waste’s and the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority’s (RVRA) two PPEA solid waste disposal proposals in June and had to wait 30 days to make a decision on how to proceed.

Supervisor Mac Scothorn told the rest of the board at last week’s regular July meeting the “savings are absolutely phenomenal.”

He called a Solid Waste Agreement Summary about the potential agreement “exciting news.”

That summary outlines the way the county came to consider an agreement with County Waste, the savings and how the county landfill will be closed and monitored, the savings for recycling, the savings and guarantees in tipping fees, savings on recycling, the potential for a revenue stream for the county, and the long-term solution for deposing of county-generated trash.

County Waste’s PPEA proposal prompted the RVRA to submit a proposal of its own.

For the County Waste proposal to kick in, the supervisors have to work with County Waste to establish a trash transfer station on 5 acres on US 11 at the current County Waste facility in the Cloverdale area. The property is next to Cavalier Equipment Co.

While county officials cannot promise the appropriate zoning and necessary special exception permit needed for the transfer station, the agreement notes the county will “diligently work to accomplish what is necessary for operations in the future for mutual gain,” the summary says.

County Waste made the unsolicited PPEA proposal to the county earlier this year, and after review, the supervisors followed the state-mandated procedures to move forward with considering the PPEA. That included allowing other proposals.

Only one came in, from the WVRA. Only one person spoke about either proposal during a public hearing at the board’s June meeting. Rebecca Kelley with Kelley’s Garbage Collection Service, one of the county’s current franchise trash haulers, wondered if County Waste rates would raise rates after the initial terms with the county ended.

The agreement summary seemed to answer that concern. “At no time in the future shall any Botetourt County generated waste rates exceed the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority rates,” the summary says, adding, “The Botetourt County generated rates shall never exceed waste rates charged for waste generated outside of Botetourt County.

“This will guarantee that Botetourt has a reasonable rate into the future with regard to other regional localities.”

The proposed agreement does not control tipping fees for solid waste generated outside the county, according to the agreement.

The rate was set at $49.50 per ton to dump at the landfill for the life of the landfill; $5.50 less than what WVRA currently charges for Botetourt garbage.

If the transfer station opens, the tipping rate will go to $55 per ton. An escalation clause based on the Consumer Price Index allows the tipping rate to increase up to 2.5 percent per year; however, the rate cannot exceed what the WVRA charges.

Under the proposed agreement, County Waste will lease and operate the county landfill to conclude filling and capping the open cells by dates established by the Department of Environmental Quality— currently, the first has to be closed by December 31, 2020.

County Waste will also close the landfill at no cost to the county and provide a one-year warranty on the closing.

The county will provide a Weigh Master when the landfill opens as a way to review contents and to provide third party weight tickets for haulers.

The county would continue to operate the Convenience Center where residents and businesses can dump trash at the landfill.

County Waste would also collect a Host Community fee of $1.50 per ton for non-Botetourt trash that goes through the new transfer station. That could amount to as much as $179,000 in current dollars should County Waste maximize its operations at the transfer station.

According to the proposed agreement, the county generates about 40 tons a trash a day. The proposed transfer station will be able to handle 500 tons per day.

According to the summary, there will be no cost for recycling material generated in Botetourt and handled by County Waste. That will save Botetourt $254,000 a year in today’s dollars.

The PPEA came about because the supervisors began looking for a way to deal with its trash when it learned the WVRA was going to require the county to join the authority by June 30, 2019— at an estimated cost of $5 million— to be able to continue to dump at the WVRA transfer station. The county was also facing closing and capping two cells at the landfill at an estimated cost of nearly $3 million.

Last year, the supervisors formed a committee to consider its options and that committee recommended essentially reopening the landfill, setting new tipping fees, having county trash hauled to the landfill again and trying to produce enough revenue to offset closing and capping the landfill.

The board adopted that plan in November 2017, but it did not deal with long-range plans for disposing of county trash. Then, the supervisors received the County Waste PPEA proposal in March of this year.

According to the agreement summary about the County Waste proposal, the county would save the $5 million buy-in to join the RVRA (although the authority dropped that requirement in its PPEA proposal), $3 million in landfill closure costs and $254,000 a year in recycling costs ($10 million over the life of the possible 40 year agreement). The county could also receive more than $3 million in Host Community revenues over the length of the contract.

County Waste has operations in other locations in Virginia and Pennsylvania.