WESTFIELD – City officials are weighing options for the future management of the Twiss Street transfer station as the engineering effort to increase the facility’s tip limit moves forward.
The Twiss Street landfill, and now the transfer station, have been administered by the Health Department for decades, a management structure unique to Westfield. Currently most of the tasks associated with the facility are performed by the Department of Public Works which is responsible for curb-side pickup of solid waste and recycling materials.
Mayor Daniel M. Knapik said that a survey was conducted of other communities with transfer station operations and that most, if not all, have the facility under the control of their public works departments.
City officials are determining what steps, including an ordinance change approved by the City Council, would be required to move administrative responsibility from the Health Department to the Public Works Department.
The administrative option is being considered in parallel with the city’s work to revise its transfer station permit and increase the tonnage of materials passing though the facility.
The current tip limit is 50 tons per day, sufficient for the curb-side solid waste collection. The current engineering work, being performed by Tighe & Bond and presently in the schematic design phase, will determine the daily tonnage the city will seek when it submits the formal lift application to the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The DEP has a list of issues of concern that the city will have to address to secure a tip limit increase. The city will be required to make a substantial investment to improve the facility, including construction of a building for the revamped tipping area.
Knapik said that the tip increase and several other issues were identified by a blue ribbon panel that assessed the potential of the city’s transfer facility.
The tip limit increase would allow the city to expand the transfer station, opening it to surrounding communities and commercial trash disposal, options that would substantially increase the revenue generated through that facility.
Other options under consideration include going to a single-stream recycling program under which residents would place all recyclable materials, now collected in separate bins, into one wheeled barrel. That approach would eliminate the need to drag several recycling bins to the curb, a task which is difficult for many city residents.
The goal is to increase the tonnage of materials being recycled by city residents and reduce the solid waste tonnage, thus reducing the cost of solid waste disposal.
Acting Health Director Joseph Rouse initiated the discussion with a request to Knapik to transfer transfer station responsibility to Public Works and refocus Health Department operations on public health issues.
DPW Superintendent Jim Mulvenna said that his department is doing the bulk of the solid waste and recycling operations and that only two city employees would be moved from the Health Department staff to the DPW staff.
Knapik established a team review of the management transfer between the two departments. Both Rouse and Mulvenna are part of that effort which also includes City Solicitor Susan Phillips and City Advancement officer Jeff Daley.
That team recently met to clarify what the city wants to do with the transfer station operation, to determine if it is conceivable to transfer it to the DPW, Rouse said Wednesday night prior to the Board of Health meeting.
“We have gotten a positive response from everybody involved, so now we’re looking to get an ordinance change to the City Council,” Rouse said.
Daley said this morning that the transfer of authority issue is still in the “very preliminary stages” and that a number of issues have yet to be addressed including collective bargaining impacts and ownership of the land which could remain with the Health Department.
Mulvenna, at the Board of Public Works meeting Tuesday night, said the administrative transfer will occur.
“The sooner the better,” Mulvenna said.
Another recommendation of the solid waste panel is that the transfer station have a dedicated solid waste/recycling manager to oversee the operations. That manager or coordinator would be in the DPW administrative structure if responsibility is shifted to the DPW.
