Weighing waste solutions for the Northwest Corner

Towns across the state have until June 30, 2027, to come up with a plan to either secure alternative waste management services or transition to a regional waste authority.

Connecticut residents produce 3.5 million tons of trash annually, yet the state only has capacity for 2.7 million tons, according to Jennifer Heaton-Jones, director of the Housatonic Resources Recovery Authority (HRRA). Heaton-Jones said it takes 125,000 truck trips to move our 3.5 million tons of waste to existing facilities and 29,000 more trucks to move the excess out-of-state.

Since the closure of the trash-to-energy plant in Hartford, the extra garbage, 860,000 tons worth, is shipped out-of-state annually to landfills in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Trash that is currently received by the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority (MIRA) Torrington transfer station is consolidated onto transfer trailers and delivered to a privately owned sanitary landfill in Pennsylvania. Recyclables are sent to privately owned processing facilities in Willimantic, Connecticut.

Trucks haul the garbage to the distant 714 acre Keystone landfill in Ardmore, Pennsylvania which receives a total of 1.8 million tons of waste annually. While Keystone projects its closing date to be in 2062, the landfill has faced numerous court cases, causing uncertainty in its future. The Northwest Corner also sends its trash by train car to Tunnel Hill Reclamation landfill in Lexington, Ohio.

Curtis Rand, first selectman of Salisbury has had his finger on the pulse of this issue for decades. Rand said recently that he and fifty people worked for twenty years to raise funds to build a state-of-the-art transfer station for Sharon and Salisbury.

It cost $5 million, and the money was raised through bonds, fundraising and a 40-year USDA loan. Foresight, communication, and cash were necessary elements for their success, yet all their solid waste is still ultimately shipped out-of-state.

Looking to the future, Rand said, “There are some tough issues coming up with how we manage our solid waste.” Rand expressed full confidence in State Representative Maria Horn (D-64) who is on the Connecticut Environment Committee. “Maria and commissioner Katie Dykes from Connecticut’s [Department of Energy and Environmental Protection] DEEP, are hip to the situation and really want to help us.”

Horn shared her concerns, “We face a serious issue in how our towns will deal with solid waste moving forward as our regional waste processing plant, known as MIRA, closed. The plant is now trucking waste to other places for disposal as it searches for other solutions, which should include both waste reduction strategies and investment in alternative strategies such as anaerobic digestion.”

Mayor Todd Arcelaschi of Winchester added, “I do not believe that shipping our trash out-of-state is sustainable. There is only so much time before the landfills become full, get shut down or the residents and or state decide they have accepted enough trash. There are reasons why Connecticut has gone away from their landfills, so when will that happen in other states?”

One possible site that could expand its use to accommodate the volume of trash is the 4.7-acre existing MIRA Torrington transfer station at 118 Vista Drive. Its accessibility to Route 8 and its proximity to the other towns is a benefit. Whether the facility can be expanded enough to meet future needs for recycling, composting, sorting, and shipping out the area’s garbage is an open question.

Rand believes it is premature to talk about the Torrington solution. He and the COG member towns recently discussed joining the Housatonic Resources Recovery Authority (HRRA) based in Brookfield. HRRA is a regional public waste management and recycling authority serving western Connecticut.

Brian Bartram, administrator of the Sharon Salisbury transfer station said, “I would hope that Torrington, or a similar location is going to remain available and publicly owned. Since the Torrington facility handled the existing, and other former MIRA members, it should be able to handle regionalization.” When asked how the closing of MIRA affected his town, Bartram responded, “The garbage still moves - but now to a Pennsylvania landfill. No impact on our disposal ability - just now it’s all going to a landfill in someone else’s backyard.”

Bartram believes that shipping out-of-state is not a sustainable solution. “The preexisting infrastructure should have been maintained or upgraded or even expanded. Wanting Connecticut to be ‘self-sufficient,’ but by not having the capacity in-state, is it sustainable?”

Mayor Arcelaschi, who serves as Administrator of the Barkhamsted/New Hartford/Winsted transfer station is positive about the Torrington facility being used as a regional hub. “I think that it would be suitable for a facility, as it wouldn’t require any changes to zoning, it’s already there and it might be able to be expanded a little to be able to handle any changes or expansion that might be necessary in the future. The facility is still in use collecting waste and recycling for the 11 MIRA towns in the Northwest corner.”

Arcelaschi was less certain when asked about finding future sites for WTE facilities. “This is a very difficult question to answer. There are some people who would want the facility, but don’t have land, others that have the property, but don’t want the facility. Then you have the neighbors, and that is often a hard sell, as no one wants it in their neighborhood.”

Salisbury First Selectman Rand summed it up, “We find challenges ahead for our management of solid waste. Ultimately it is about how much of this stuff we create, where we will put it, and how it gets there. The less we create, and the more we re-purpose and recycle, the easier this will be to solve.”