The landfill agreement between Powell and the city of Billings, Mont., was approved last week — following a marathon meeting by the Billings City Council on June 9.

Powell was one of seven clients whose agreements with the Montana city were approved in one unanimous vote, including Two Tough Guys Services of Cody. The other five are all from Montana: Yellowstone County, Stillwater County, the city of Laurel, MacKenzie Disposal of Billings and Republic Services of Montana, which is based in Missoula.

Powell City Administrator Zane Logan said the decision by the Billings City Council wraps up the long process to find a place for Powell to take its household waste.

“That is the final detail that needed to be worked out,” he said. “It’s our intent to begin delivery on July 1.”

Powell will pay $26.07 per ton in a tipping fee at the landfill. That is expected to cost about $165,000. Powell reached a five-year agreement with Billings, although both sides can terminate it with 30 days notice.

Warren Transport will take the municipal solid waste (MSW) to Billings, alternately using a pair of city-owned trailers that will be filled with garbage at the city’s transfer station.

The city estimates it will spend about $162,000 for hauling the garbage, with between four and five trips a week to Billings.

Logan said a Warren Transport driver would come to Powell to hammer out the details on the pick-up and delivery.

Otto Goldbach, co-owner of Two Tough Guys, said he will do business with both the Billings landfill and the Park County Landfill in Cody, but will take all his MSW to Billings under his five-year contract. The firm has a “couple hundred” customers in the Powell area, Goldbach said.

He said he decided to do so for “a number of reasons.”

“We’re not so much doing it because of price,” Goldbach said. “Something we’d like to do is set up a transfer station during the transfer process when we can start doing some recycling.”

He said he could not afford to unload the garbage, sort it and then take it to Park County Landfill. But by receiving a lower rate in Billings — as a private business, he said he did not want to disclose the price — he can afford to do “some form of recycling.”

“I don’t know how well it will work,” Goldbach said, but he plans to try it for about six months to see how that works. He will open a transfer station in Cody and will sort the garbage headed to Billings.

“We’re not ditching the county,” Goldbach said. “We’re doing something different.”

The landfill decision was a minor matter at the Billings City Council meeting, which lasted for nearly 11 and a half hours because of a nine-hour public hearing about a non-discrimination ordinance, according to City Clerk Cari Martin. The meeting started at 6:30 p.m. Monday and ended at 5:53 a.m. Tuesday.

“It was brutal,” said Martin, a Powell native. “That was a dandy. That has to be a state record.”