You Paid For It - $10,000,000 Landfill With No Garbage?

A landfill without garbage?

For ten years that's exactly what the Saratoga landfill has looked like. Instead of trucks and trash, the site is filled with deer and dandelions. 

Ten years ago the landfill in Northumberland was bought and constructed for nearly 10 million dollars, but since then not an ounce of trash has ever been placed there. The money was spent on the property, constructing two buildings, site tanks and weigh scales. Ten years later Saratoga County Leaders are trying to renew their operating permit for a landfill that's not even used.

Joe Miranda who works at the site with one other person says it's an insurance policy for the county.

"It's not money over the waterfall, more like money in the bank."

He says operating a landfill is also very expensive.

 "You have maintenance, manpower and when you close landfills, after their lifespan you own them for eternity," Miranda said. "Monitoring costs for 30 years, people and engineers on site monitoring these things."

The tipping point to all this are the tipping fees. Tipping fees is money the landfill charges companies to dump the garbage.

County administrator Dave Wickerham says: "Tipping fees used to be $120-$200 dollars. Now they are a lot lower because theres a lot of spaces to dump the trash. Our position is wait until the demand reaches a certain level and we will certainly be opening it."

As far as a mistake goes, Miranda says he doesn't think it was a mistake but admits the opening process has been long.

 "I guess if I had thought that at the beginning it'd take this long, I'd be suprised, but during the evolution of the Solid Waste Journey, I'm not suprised."

While you paid for the landfill already, you're still paying the operating costs at more than $10,000 per year.