PORT ANGELES – Cutting the ribbon just made it official.
The Regional Transfer Station at the end of West 18th Street already was operating Tuesday afternoon when Waste Connections of Washington employees joined city and county officials in a ceremony dedicating the new operation.
In fact, speakers during the brief ceremony had to raise their voices or even pause briefly because of the noise from incoming garbage trucks dumping trash onto the new building’s smooth concrete floor.
“On behalf of our staff, I’m extremely pleased to finally reach this milestone. It’s a wonderful collaboration,” said Eddie Westmoreland, division vice president for Waste Connections of Washington, which built the facility.
The 17,000 square-foot transfer station replaces the Port Angeles Landfill, which closed on Saturday.
Now instead of being buried on the site, garbage will be trucked to Tacoma, taken by rail to Vancouver, Wash., and barged up the Columbia River to the Finley Buttee Regional landfill in Boardman, Ore.
The transfer station – which measures about 100 feet wide by 180 feet long by 32 feet high – will accept about 70,000 tons of garbage per year.
