City purchases transfer trailer, transtors

City of Powell officials are moving forward with transfer station plans as quickly as possible — but the next step is waiting.

Last week, the city ordered new equipment for the garbage transfer station. The two transtor units and a transfer trailer will be ready in five to six months.

The Powell City Council unanimously approved the $582,973 purchase from NEXGEN Municipal. The price includes installation.

The Canada-based business was the only company to meet pre-qualification specifications for the project.

“The equipment that they produce is specialized and proprietary, but the city needed to make sure and check if anyone else could provide similar equipment without infringing on patent rights, hence the pre-qualification. No one else put in for the equipment,” said Gary Butts, city public services manager.

If all goes as planned, the transfer station will begin taking trash several months after the Powell landfill closes to household waste in September.

City officials have spent years anticipating that closure and planning for a garbage transfer station to receive trash. The station is designed to collect and temporarily store garbage until it can be hauled to the regional landfill in Cody.

Rather than directly hauling trash to Cody, city leaders have said a transfer station is the most cost effective option in the long run. The transfer trailer will make one trip to Cody each day instead of three daily trips with city garbage trucks that aren’t designed for highway travel.

The transfer station will contain two levels: an upper level where sanitation trucks will enter and dump their waste, and a lower level with a transfer trailer to receive the waste. The transtors provide the necessary link in between.

City sanitation trucks will enter the upper level and unload waste into transtor units, 53-yard water-tight containers that store trash. When the transtor is full, it will dump into a transfer trailer located on the lower level.

The transfer trailer will compact the trash, and when it’s at maximum capacity, it will be hauled to the regional landfill in Cody. The city plans to contract with an independent trucking company to haul the transfer trailer.

All of the equipment will be enclosed in a metal building. The transfer station will not be open to the general public.

The city is building the transfer station on industrial-zoned property on North Ingalls Street near the existing City Sanitation Department. Some neighbors criticized the plans to build it there.

The city is using the value of its North Ingalls site as part of a match for grants through the State Loans and Investment Board. The board has awarded $752,502 in grants toward the roughly $1.43 million transfer station project.

From the SLIB grants, $100,000 will go toward the transfer trailer and $652,502 toward the transfer station and transtor units, Butts said.

The rest of the city’s share of the project and transfer trailer — roughly $677,500 — will come from sanitation fund reserves as well as in-kind work, such as using the city’s equipment and labor toward the project.

The city also is waiting on permits through the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. That process is proceeding, and the transfer station is on track for construction this fall.

“We’re still certainly hoping for that — we haven’t heard anything different,” Butts said.