Bigger budget will mean improvements at Dougherty County’s landfill

ALBANY – When it comes to businesses, Dougherty County has one that should always provide a steady stream of customers. That’s because there is always a steady stream of garbage being produced and hauled to the county landfill, 

For this budget year, the Dougherty County Commission has more than doubled the outlays for capital improvements at the sprawling facility on Gaissert Road, with the maintenance and operation budget being boosted by 17.4%. 

The landfill is a service for residents who are allowed to dispose of up to 500 pounds of garbage per day at no cost, and is the county’s sole money-making fund, earning tipping fees from the city of Albany and several county governments that dispose of their garbage at the facility.

Along with increasing capital spending from $965,000 for the budget year that ended June 30 to $2.14 million for the fiscal year that began on July 1, the county also hired Seth Lassitter as the solid waste manager about a month ago.

Lassitter will manage a department that is at 22 employees when fully staffed, and 26, including Keep Albany-Dougherty Beautiful, which was moved last year to operate under the Solid Waste Department.

An Atmore, Ala., native, Lassitter previously worked at the Dalton-Whitfield Solid Waste Authority, where he was the environmental manager. Lassitter was building his resume to eventually be the director there before the opportunity in Dougherty County opened up, allowing his family to be near his wife’s family in Terrell County.

“In the landfill business, they have a running joke as to what is coming in each day and saying, ‘I haven’t seen that before,’” he said. “Every day is a new day with a new truck.”

With the bigger budget, the new director is looking at a list of surveys and improvements to ensure that the landfill can handle the needs of the county, its residents and customers.

“We’ve got a lot of work to get the landfill up to par, in my opinion, but I’m very excited about this opportunity,” Lassitter said. “It’s certainly an opportunity where we can grow and make this very beneficial for years to the community. It’s a service that we provide for the community, and I want to prolong that resource for the community. It’s not just fill it up and close it.”

Among the top priorities for the new director is having an air space survey conducted to get an accurate estimate on the expected life for the landfill. Lassitter also plans to look at a potential expansion that would increase the volume available both laterally and vertically, which would add up to 20 years of life to the current facility.

The county site includes both a closed landfill, which is still being monitored, and the one currently in use. Lassitter did not want to give an estimate on the expected life for the landfill prior to having the study done.

His job also entails protecting the environment, the director said.

“Obviously you want to make money, but you want to do so without impacting the environment negatively,” he said. “I want to protect the environment with the rules and regulations guiding us from the EPD (Georgia Environmental Protection Division). I also want to give our employees the resources they need to do the job correctly.”

Another goal is making the experience more pleasant for governmental customers by reducing the wait time to weigh in and out at the scales and have a system where wait times are cut for dumping.

“That’s a big step in the right direction, so you don’t have a huge line at the scales,” Lassitter said. “The scale entrance, the roads around the scales and the scale house itself, we’re going to make improvements to make them more user-friendly. We need to get that truck in in 30 minutes or less, which hasn’t been the case in the past.

“We don’t want to be going one truck at the time, we’re going two, three and four trucks at a time. We need to make our landfill operations more efficient.”

While garbage is out of sight once it’s buried, it is not out of mind, as is evident by the large number of monitoring devices at the facility. Those devices are there to ensure that gases do not migrate off the site, which can pose a danger.

“When you put trash in the ground, it will produce methane or landfill gases,” the director said. “It’ll produce gas for over 30 years as it decomposes anaerobically. If you don’t manage these gases, they will produce a lot of operational issues.”

Some of the gas, which is designated as a greenhouse gas, is burned at the site with a flare. Through a contract with Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany, the county sells methane used at the base to produce electricity.

“They pay us for it,” Lassitter said. “We did the same in Dalton. We sent gas to an end-user who paid us for it. I was actively involved with that process. It was very good for us and the user.”

Improvements at the landfill are needed, County Commissioner Ed Newsome said, and Lassitter seems to be getting it back on track after a couple of years with the position filled by an interim director.

The investment in the landfill through this year’s budget will allow the county to meet its obligations in operations and to make sure the facility is able to produce a profit in the future, the commissioner said. 

“He’s hit the ground running,” Newsome said of Lassitter. “Not taking anything away from the interim; it’s a hard position to fill. I think we’ve got someone excellent to do this. It was worth the wait.

“We have to have all kinds of compliance stuff. We still have to have money to close the landfill, even though that’s 25 years out probably. We have to keep it all in compliance so we don’t have any difficulty. It’s very stringent.”