Control of litter blowing into Idaho from the North Valley Landfill in Clarkston will now be the responsibility of a new employee of the Logan City Environmental Department.
CLARKSTON – The Logan City landfill here will now address the continuing problem of trash blowing into nearby Idaho the old fashioned way – with manpower.
After sophisticated litter mitigation steps met with limited degrees of success, City Environmental Director Issa Hamud recently told members of the Logan City Council that his department will add a new employee position to its payroll to serve as a full-time trash spotter at the North Valley Landfill.
“We are proposing to add a spotter whose primary responsibility is to spot any litter blowing and to maintain the (landfill’s) litter fences,” Hamud explained. “The (new) employee will also be used at the Transfer Station on an as-needed basis to fill-in for the landfill inspector and help with household hazardous waste.”
The North Valley Landfill has been a point of friction between Logan and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality for months. DEQ officials estimate that winter and spring storms blew up to six tons of plastic, paper, cardboard and other waste from the landfill over the border into Idaho, especially impacting farmers and residents of the town of Weston.
Hamud explained that his department cooperated with Idaho officials to develop a litter mitigation plan that included installing a weather station to monitor wind direction, adding segments of 30-foot high fencing on the north side of the landfill, delaying truck off-loading during high-wind periods and reorienting the “working face” of the landfill to block winds.
“We have also been using service workers and inmates from the Cache County Jail to control litter,” Hamud wrote in an Aug. 26 memorandum to the Logan City Council. “Due to COVID-19, we have not been able to count on that support.”
But Hamud added that the city has found the use of temporary workers to pick up litter is not cost-effective, efficient or reliable.
The addition of the new spotter position at NVL will ensure continuity in the litter-control effort and fulfill commitments made to DEQ officials, according to Hamud.
The new employee’s additional duties will include servicing the landfill’s treatment pond and maintaining its storm-water controls, scale system and weather station.