Landfill manager: Handling garbage is complex business

As Jim Chilton contemplates the day ahead in an office filled with shelves of thick reports and binders full of water-quality and air-quality monitoring data, it’s clear there’s a lot more to running the county landfill than making space for garbage.

“Garbage is a science now,” said Chilton, operations manager for the Flathead County Solid Waste District.

He explains the landfill’s “fill sequence plan,” a calculated determination of how the space is used. He talks about the construction of Cell 5, the latest project to line a portion of the landfill so groundwater is protected. The new leachate facility built over the past year comes up in conversation, too.

“You have to have a vision so you know where you’re going to put the trash,” he said.

And there’s a lot of trash — 238.3 million pounds of garbage were disposed of at the landfill during the last fiscal year, an increase of 12.4 percent over the previous year. Yet because of the Solid Waste District’s vision and planning, the landfill has 100 years of capacity.

Beyond the confines of the landfill that operates off U.S. 93 between Kalispell and Whitefish, Chilton also oversees the Solid Waste District’s green-box collection sites spread throughout the county.

“One of our biggest accomplishments has been the consolidation and staffing of the green boxes,” Chilton said. “It was important to get those under control.”

Most of the outlying collection sites are now fenced, staffed and equipped with a cardboard compactor. Only the green boxes at Olney, Coram, Essex and Ashley Lake remain unstaffed, but seasonal staffing is being considered at a couple of those sites.

Chilton said he’s seen it all through his years of overseeing the green boxes. Years ago he arrived at the Coram green-box site on a Sunday morning to find someone had disposed of a 10-by-70-foot trailer house.

“I’ve seen people eating out the trash,” he said, and plenty of “Dumpster diving” before most of the sites were manned.

“I’ve seen everything under the sun,” he said with a smile.

If it seems like Chilton, 54, knows the landfill business like the back of his hand, it’s because he has spent nearly all of his career working there. With 29 years of landfill service under his belt, he’s the most tenured employee there.

After Chilton graduated from Flathead High School in 1981, he headed to Northern Montana College in Havre, where he earned an associate degree in metals technology. When he returned to the Flathead Valley he went to work for Pierce Manufacturing and spent four years there doing a variety of welding projects.

In 1988 the Solid Waste District was looking for someone with a college education who was a welder and fabricator. Chilton’s credentials were perfect for the job. He soon stepped into an operator position, completing an 18-month apprenticeship that taught him the ins and outs of running a garbage compactor and front-end loader.

After a decade at the landfill he moved up again, becoming one of the foremen. Chilton has been the operations manager for 10 years and is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the facility. He works in tandem with Public Works Director Dave Prunty, who oversees not only the Solid Waste District but also the county Roads and Bridges Department.

As one might expect, Chilton has seen a ton of change in his years at the landfill. One of the biggest improvements came in 1997 when the scale house was installed and the landfill began diverting various segments of the waste stream, segregating white goods and tree brush and stumps, and creating a collection point for hazardous materials.

“Prior to that waste came into the facility and there was no idea of the tonnage,” he said. “Diverting those wastes saves air space.”

The Solid Waste District was created in late 1968 by the county commissioners and the landfill opened its current facility in 1971. Before that various smaller landfills operated throughout the county; those were closed and reclaimed. The green-box sites were created to provide service to the outlying areas, he said.

“We get very few negative comments” about the green boxes, he said. “Our biggest complaint are the hours.”

The sites operate from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. 359 days a year to follow the same schedule as the landfill.

“That’s pretty good service,” Chilton said. “Only the Sheriff’s Department is open more than we are.”

Chilton gives a lot of credit to his staff, which now totals 30 employees counting himself and Prunty.

Another improvement at the landfill in recent years has been the partnership with Flathead Electric Cooperative, which in 2009 began operation of the first landfill gas-to-energy plant in Montana where landfill gas is collected and used to produce electricity.

“It’s been wonderful. We couldn’t be happier with that program,” Chilton said.

Improvements made to the landfill over the years have caught the attention of the state Department of Environmental Quality.

“DEQ uses this site as their showpiece,” Chilton said. “We take a lot of pride in keeping the site in top shape. I don’t want it to look like a dump.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.