BOCC won't stop talking trash

WALLACE — The Murray Dump was the topic of discussion on Tuesday afternoon at the Shoshone County Courthouse.

The Shoshone Board of County Commissioners (BOCC), met with Public Works Director Jim Cason, as well as Solid Waste Director Richard Brenner to discuss the ongoing issues that both departments are having with misuse of the Murray Dump.

According to employees with Public Works who maintain the site, as the weather warms up the site falls victim to the similar fate that many of the other dump areas in the upper North Fork region — including overflowing dumpsters, trash routinely not making it into the dumpster, or being full of household items like furniture, appliances, workout equipment and even construction waste.

Located between Murray and Prichard on a county-owned lot — the unmanned site has been described as a free-for-all transfer station, and while several attempts have been made to regulate the site, none have succeeded and the burden is only continuing to grow.

Whereas the situation primarily on the North Fork surrounds people from surrounding areas flocking to the area for camping, the situation in Murray is slightly different.

“We’re finding that it’s not the residents of Shoshone County,” Cason said. “It’s people waiting until the late spring when Thompson Pass opens up and they travel over here and come to our dump. Once that pass is open, it becomes a real free for all.”

Cameras, volunteer site monitors during heavy use times, gates and signage have all been attempted in the past. These failures really highlight the limitations as to what can be done outside from closing the site for good — an option the BOCC isn’t even entertaining at this point.

When the gate option was attempted, folks simply dumped their trash at the gate which left the county crews to have to pick up the trash and move it to the dumpster themselves — basically, allowing them in and at least around the dumpster being a better option than having to tram it across the lot.

Volunteers either ended up being threatened or decided to become vigilantes themselves — which presents several issues for the county.

Cason does believe that using higher quality cameras to capture license plate numbers and faces would be effective — but they would need to be acquired.

Commissioners Mike Fitzgerald and John Hansen weren’t surprised by the reports and would like to begin coming up with a solution.

Right now, they would like to begin exploring the option of keeping more dumpsters at the site, as well as entertaining the idea of new cameras.

They also discussed potentially upgrading the site to look like a small transfer station in hopes that folks using it would see that effort has been put into keeping it looking as nice as possible.

“We have a situation where the planet’s not getting any bigger, but the number of people and their garbage is increasing,” Fitzgerald said. “We’re seeing more and more people here, coming from all sorts of places. This site is unmanned, which leaves us with the garbage. The question is, how are we going to deal with it responsibly?”

During the summer months, the dumpsters in Murray usually are picked up and swapped out twice a week — but that number is almost guaranteed to go up following a longer holiday weekend.

“What we can’t do is eliminate the service,” Fitzgerald said. “We can’t eliminate a service like this one after having it for so long. I know the situation can be an inconvenience, but having the trash wind up on the site around the dumpsters is far better than the alternative.”

The various solutions are going to be researched in the coming weeks and another meeting is expected later this summer.

The Shoshone News-Press will continue to follow this story.