Pack it in, pack it out: southeast considers a regional solid-waste solution.

• Author: Swagel, Will
• Position: ENVIRONMENTAL

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"I don't think (a regional trash-handling system) will fly if it's just a bunch of the smaller communities that get involved in this. Ketchikan and Sitka need to be on board, but I think Juneau is the key to the whole deal. If Juneau gets involved to some degree, I think we have a much better chance of making a good go."

--Karl Hagerman

Director of Public Works

City of Petersburg

Getting rid of trash is yet an.other everyday activity complicated by location for the two dozen or so island communities stretched along the Southeast Panhandle. Hemmed in by the immense Tongass National Forest, many of these towns, villages and fishing ports have little private or municipal owned property. Most cluster along a thin shelf of level land at the foot of coastal mountains, making it harder to find room for a landfill. There are few roads. Now, add constant rainfall, the threat of toxic runoff and countless fish-bearing streams and it is no longer a complication, but a disaster.

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PULLING IT TOGETHER

The communities in Southeast have come up with several disposal methods. After some recycling, many trans-ship the remaining waste on barges to a transfer site in Puget Sound and ultimate burial in a vast industrial landfill in Eastern Washington. Juneau uses an unpopular local landfill whose life is being extended by a new curbside recycling system.

This spring, the Southeast Conference, a regional, public-private economic development organization, will present its members with an ordinance to permit the formation of a regional solid waste authority. They will then call for proposals to construct a regional site and its success will depend on getting as many Southeast communities as possible to "contribute."

INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY

The Southeast Conference, which began in 1958 as a lobbying group to establish the Alaska Marine Highway System, now chimes in on a wide variety of regional economic issues. For the last year, representatives of about a dozen towns have attended meetings to write an enabling ordinance to form a regional solid waste authority and seek proposals to carry out operations from at least one site in Southeast.

"We (the region) currently spend $2 million or more per year shipping the trash to Washington," said John Bolling, chair of the Southeast Conference steering committee organizing the regional initiative. "For some time, the communities have talked about the uncertainties involved in...