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In search of a bigger space of waste Pending environmental tests, Rogue Disposal will expand Medford transfer station facility By MELISSA MARTIN Mail Tribune Rogue Disposal plans to purchase 21.6 acres in Medford's Whetstone Industrial Park for a future expansion of the company's transfer station. Rogue Waste Systems LLC has signed an option agreement with the city to purchase the land adjacent to the site where residents have delivered garbage for the past three years. The price would be $300,000. "We'd like to have additional property in the future," said Don Cordell, manager for Rogue Waste Systems, which oversees the group of companies that collect, recycle and dispose of waste. "We want to make sure we have the ability to continue to grow and use it for storage or other uses." Rogue Disposal's purchase agreement is contingent on whether state and federal regulations restrict development on the property off Table Rock Road in White City. Rogue Disposal will make an initial non-refundable payment of $10,000 to the city, with two more refundable $5,000 payments to follow. The balance would be paid after Rogue Disposal receives permits from the Oregon Division of State Lands and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "There are wetlands and endangered species issues that have to be worked through," Cordell said. The city's 750-acre Whetstone Industrial Park is in the Agate Desert in what used to be part of the sprawling Camp White military training base. The area was considered for a prison in the mid-1990s. And in 1997, scientists discovered a threatened species living in the Agate Desert - the fairy shrimp. Rogue Disposal is one of several tenants in Whetstone Industrial Park. Others include GEC Alsthom, which operates a transformer manufacturing plant; Erickson Air-Crane, the Central Point helicopter company that's building a warehouse on 40 acres; BOC Gases, a plant that handles gases used in the semiconductor industry; and The Nature Conservancy, which is preserving 49 acres. Called Rogue Disposal Public Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center, the station at 8001 Table Rock Road opened January 1999 in a recycled building owned by transformer manufacturer Balteau Standard. Residents can no longer haul their own garbage to the landfill. Instead, they drop off their refuse at the metal building with concrete floors for mud-free unloading of pickup trucks. The minimum cost is $10.50. Rogue Disposal hauls the garbage from the transfer station to the Dry Creek Landfill, the only remaining landfill after South Stage Road Landfill's closure in Jacksonville in 1998. Three years ago, Rogue Disposal expanded the Dry Creek Landfill by creating a seven-acre compost facility for yard waste. The company wanted to build a second access road off Highway 140, using part of a Pacificorp road to a 500-volt power line behind Roxy Ann Peak. Jackson County Hearings Officer John Eads approved a conditional use permit for the compost facility, but denied the road because of its potential impact on deer and elk herds living in the area. The conditions for the compost permit required Rogue Disposal to build a fence and plant a buffer, put a muffler on the green waste grinder, build a 15-foot-high berm, limit truck speeds to 25 mph and noise levels to 97 decibels and create a wildlife easement between the landfill and Prescott Park, situated at the top of Roxy Ann Peak. Dry Creek has become a regional landfill, the only landfill between Roseburg and Redding, according to a state official. Waste is trucked in from Grants Pass, Klamath Falls, towns on the Oregon coast and Northern California cities, such as Yreka, Dunsmuir, Weed and Montague, said Zach Loboy, environmental specialist for the Department of Environmental Quality. Grants Pass closed its landfill near Merlin in part because of contamination of nearby residential wells. South Stage Landfill closed in 1998 to satisfy state requirements. That leaves Dry Creek east of White City as the region's major landfill. "It's better to have a larger infrastructure that's built to the most up-to-date specifications," Loboy said. "It makes it more environmentally safe." Reach reporter Melissa Martin at 776-4497, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.