The Town of Highlands agreed to improve the Highlands Transfer Station, in exchange for a place to keep its extra dirt.
According to County Manager Warren Cabe, the Town of Highlands approached the county with a proposal to make improvements to the station – like expanding a mulch processing area and building a gravel access road – as part of a dredging project the town is working on.
Cabe said, “They are working on a dredging project near Mirror Lake, and they have been filtering out the soil that’s coming out of the lake and draining it and then trying to find places to put it. They have an abundance, obviously, more than the space they have.”
When the muck dries, the product is a high-quality soil which Highlands can then compact and transfer to where the town wants to put it.
“So they approached us, wanted to know if they could essentially bring that soil down to an area that’s very close to what’s called the mulch process area or woody debris area at the transfer station in Highlands which would require them to actually enlarge that area for us, build a new access road in for us and build two sediment basins there for us as well at no cost to us,” Cabe continued.
He said a problem could arise if they station quickly lost space for a day to work with woody debris, but adjustments could be made if that occurs. The station will remain open while the changes are made, and once the construction is complete the station will be approximately double its current size.
Commissioner John Shearl asked for the pros, to which Cabe said a better road and larger holding area for brush, which will also result in more room to grind mulch. For the cons, he said there may be occasional inconvenience with two entities using the same space.
Board Chair Josh Young said his only concern was the potential for a hazard driving over an area with a lot of sand and mulch laid out, but interim Solid Waste Director Jaimie Picou assured Highlands would be working with a contractor and have an engineer on site.
The board approved the agreement unanimously.
Board amends FRL Interlocal Agreement
The Macon County Board of Commissioners approved an amendment to the Fontana Regional Library Interlocal Agreement to require the FRL to return certain surplus funds to the counties that provided the funds at the end of the fiscal year. While a previous version of the amendment, proposed by Jackson County, would require any remaining funding exceeding operational costs be refunded proportionally to the respective library systems, the new agreement clarifies the amount refunded would be the net surplus funds. Jackson County, Swain County and the FRL Board of Trustees have already approved the amendment.
- Shelby Powell
reporter@thefranklinpress.com