Marion County board approves employee lease agreement change

Billy Gouger
Billy Gouger

JASPER, Tenn. - When Marion County entered a 1993 agreement with Solid Waste Disposal Inc. in Jasper to run its landfill, one provision in the contract limited the corporation's ability to hire its own employees.

The Landfill Employee Lease Agreement was intended to protect county employees who were already working at the landfill through Marion's sanitation department.

But at the Marion County Commission's November meeting, County Attorney Billy Gouger said officials wanted to remove that stipulation from the agreement because many of those county employees have since retired or moved on.

"I think the consensus is there's no longer really a need for that limitation to be in there," he said. "It's not going to affect any current county employees who are leased to Solid Waste and the county is reimbursed for. It really applies to future employees to let the corporation decide what best fits its needs to run the landfill."

Commissioner Tommy Thompson is a member of the county's solid waste board and said there are three employees at the landfill now who have been there for more than 30 years each and could retire at any time.

"The county is not going to really wind up with about two employees left down there," he said. "If we do the hiring through Solid Waste, that would give us the flexibility to do with the employees what we want to do with them."

Thompson said the change would be "good for both parties" and that he doesn't think the solid waste board will have any objections to it.

The board voted unanimously to amend the lease agreement and remove the hiring limitation.

Thompson said there will be a lot of changes coming at the landfill soon.

He said he believes it is the "consensus" at the state level to put smaller landfills, like Marion's, out of business in favor of "the megasite guys."

"They'd like to see just a handful of the big boys left," Thompson said. "That's got its ups and downs, too, and it's a lot of downs."

He said the state has made it nearly impossible to run a small landfill in Tennessee by putting in regulations that smaller entities cannot abide.

At one time, disposal fees in Marion were $10 to $12 per ton, but those prices have tripled in the last 30 years.

"We're still cheaper than most people," Thompson said.

Instead of "nailing the local people in the foot" with overwhelming disposal fees, Thompson said officials have begun installing a transfer station at the Marion landfill in order to move garbage to some of the megasites across the region.

"Garbage [disposal prices] are going to go up whatever we do, regardless," he said. "We're trying to set the county up to where they will have a place to dispose their garbage for the next 40 years or so."

The solid waste board will meet later this month to consider the proposed amendment to the agreement, which will likely go into effect in January.

Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.

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