By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Finding a place to put the trash gets more complicated all the time... so much so that Fayette County is looking for a consultant to help sort out the future of solid waste management here.

“We need something to synthesize these problems,” said county manager Billy Beckett in presenting the situation to the County Commission last week.

A contract for landfill services from Southern States Environmental Services expires in two years, and a number of problems need to be worked out concerning the remainder of that contract, said Beckett.

Fayette also faces serious environmental questions in the closing of the county's old landfill on First Manassas Mile Road. Experts currently are studying pollutants seeping from the landfill to determine how much of a problem that's going to be.

And questions about the future of waste handling after the current contract with Southern States expires also haunt local officials. Waste is currently being hauled out of the county, but that may not be allowed to continue indefinitely. The possibility of eventually opening a new landfill inside Fayette and other solutions need to be explored, Beckett said.

Commissioners agreed to allow county staff to develop a request for proposals from solid waste consultants. The idea, said Beckett, is to tie all three issues together and “help us develop a course of action.”

All the problems involved are serious and potentially expensive, he said. “They have tremendous potential implications for the county, and we need to see how much money we're talking about.”

Commissioners noted that the county recently sent a solid waste management plan for approval by the state, and wondered why the answers to Beckett's questions aren't in that document. But that plan is very general, he said.

“We don't have any specificity in that plan,” he said.

“It wouldn't take much of a benefit to easily pay for the consultants' costs,” said commission Chairman Harold Bost.