MAHANOY CITY — The North Schuylkill Landfill Association delegates held a special meeting Tuesday that included discussion of the transfer station sale.
The association held the meeting due to the lack of a quorum at the regular April 26 meeting. In addition to regular business, President Franklin Fetter, the delegate from Ryan Township, asked solicitor Jeffrey M. Markosky about the transfer station, which had been owned by the association and sold to North Schuylkill Transfer Station LLC, a Rich family company.
“We still don’t understand what the situation is here, who is responsible, who owns it,” Fetter said. “The original agreement was with JMB and then the ownership changed with JMB at 74 percent and Kreitzer at 26 percent. Then Kreitzer was supposed to pay us and they were falling behind, and now it’s County Waste.”
“I spoke with Kreitzer’s lawyer, and Kreitzer is going to continue to pay us and honor the original contract,” Markosky said.
“Do we have any way to guarantee it?” Fetter asked.
“We have the original contract, and if he wouldn’t, we can still use that to sue them,” Markosky said.
Fetter explained to the newer delegates about the landfill and transfer station.
“The association is responsible for the landfill,” Fetter said. “The original agreement with the state about the landfill permit is a three-way street. Girard Estate owns the land. We lease it from Girard Estate until the landfill is officially closed, which it is not. So we still pay Girard Estate $10,000 a year until it is officially closed, and God knows when that is going to be. It could be never the way things are going with the state.”
The NSLA consists of 17 member municipalities in the northern Schuylkill County area had been operating a domestic waste landfill south of Shenandoah on Girard Estate property from 1971 to 1990, when DEP enacted new rules requiring a double liner for landfills. The rules prohibited the landfill from accepting garbage. At that point, the association built its transfer station and was operating it near the village of Turkey Run, accepting waste material from member municipalities, commercial customers and private citizens and hauling it to the Commonwealth Environmental Systems landfill.
In April 2009, the NSLA was notified by letter from Michael J. Rich that the lease on the Rich-owned property where the transfer station is located would not be renewed. At the time, the deadline to cease operations was June 4, but negotiations began between the two parties, which led to a sale agreement that has North Schuylkill Transfer Station LLC paying the association $5,000 per month for 10 years for all transfer station assets, which were buildings and equipment. The payments are deposited into the NSLA dedicated account for use in the official closing of the landfill as prescribed by the state Department of Environmental Protection and to monitor it for 30 years afterward. Currently, the association has about $2.8 million for that purpose.
The NSLA and NSTS agreed to the sale September 2009, but both parties could not change ownership until the transfer of the NSLA operating permit to NSTS was approved by DEP. The transfer was approved in early June.
Due to the delay in the permit transfer, the agreement between the two parties was amended to allow for depreciation of transfer station assets by $10,000, reducing the payment to the NSLA to $590,000 over the 10-year period. The NSLA has received $290,000 in payments.
After the meeting, Markosky said the transfer station sale was recently discovered.
“We just found out about it and looked into it and discovered it,” Markosky said.
Even with County Waste taking over Kreitzer’s operation and transfer station, Kreitzer will continue the payments.
“Kreitzer is responsible and has given us a verbal promise that it will continue to pay, and he has been paying and is up to date and actually ahead one month,” Markosky said.
Markosky said there is no issue about the sale of the transfer station to Kreitzer.
“As long as they’re paying us, there’s no problem. That’s what is going on, and I hope it continues,” Markosky said.