With federal and state regulations making the prospect of the county landfill turning into a money pit a glaring reality, the mayor and county commissioners are discussing the possibility of shipping local rubbish out of town.
County Mayor Mike Foster said at the commission meeting Monday night that the cost of going to a solid-waste transfer station and maintaining a landfill would likely require similar expenditures for the county, but the transfer station will take away the staggering environmental responsibilities of maintaining a landfill operation.
The mayor and many of the commissioners took a trip to Livingston recently to inspect their solid waste transfer station.
Waste transfer stations are facilities where trash is dropped, much like the landfill or community collection sites operate now.
 The big difference is that the refuse will only be held at the transfer station until it is picked up by a private company and transported elsewhere.
“I think more and more that we need to look at this,” Foster told the assembly.
Considering that the landfill is projected to run out of room in approximately three years, the mayor feels that it is time to open discussion about what to do when the current cell is full.
“With somewhere between two and three years left in there (the landfill cell), some decisions are going to have to be made,” Foster said.
As for the environmental liability involved in operating the landfill, Foster said that unexpected problems at the facility could impact the county’s finances in a disastrous way.
“Something that is beyond our control could affect us (financially) more than we can imagine, he said.