Beaufort County Megasite trashes excess hassles

Washington, BEAUFORT COUNTY — Beaufort County officials said Wednesday a new multi-million-dollar plan for trash could potentially save the county more money in the long run.

Washington native, Julia Lodge, said she’s dissatisfied with the current state of trash collection “To me, it’s not well kept or maintained, and it has just caused issues.” Lodge lives next door to a waste collection site, saying she’s seen large amounts of litter on the roads leading up to the site.

County commissioners with public works came up with a plan to build two waste collection megasites.

County officials said commissioners were introduced to the plan back in 2022, after it the idea was developed in 2021.

Deputy public works director, Wes Overman, said “it’s something that we can take great pride inHaving the ability to potentially offer new services down the road is key.”

Overman listed numerous challenges with the current trash collection system. He said the costs continue to rise annually after operating all 10 sites. However, he said the county only owns five of the sites, limiting their control over how the other sites are managed.

Overman said many sites go unused, with only three sites collecting majority of the trash.

He said this is in part because of sites overlapping – causing the sites to serve the same people.

Lodge said she doesn’t think two megasites are enough. “People aren’t going to want to drive but so far to take their trash.”

While overman said the two sites will have several employees and designed to receive all materials currently accepted, he said there’s no plan yet about what will happen to the other collection sites.

However, he said all sites will be strictly for Beaufort County use.

While there’s no specific location yet, officials said the Northside site will be no larger than 50 acres, and the site on the southside will not be more than 90 acres.

Officials said they do not have a cost analysis yet on how much money the county will save, but they said they hope costs will be cut because of potentially better efficiency.

Overman emphasized not using general tax dollars to fund this project. He said they will use money from the ‘Solid Waste Enterprise Fund’ comprised of money collected from waste fees paid by property owners.

He said they’re trying to use federal ARPA (Covid recovery funds) to help cover the cost.

Overall, Officials confirm this project will not raise property taxes.

While solid waste fees could potentially increase, he said they get reviewed and adjusted annually.

Officials offered a proposed timeline of 11 months to complete all phases of construction. Overman said the engineer called it an ‘optimistic’ timeline.

Overman admits they did not ask for public input. However, he said people can voice their opinions during the board of commissioners’ meetings.

Officials said they’re waiting for final verification from their environmental study of the land.