The future of the Waste Management's Canal Winchester transfer station on Walnut Street is in doubt after the company recently reached an agreement to dump all the trash it collects in Franklin County at the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio's landfill near Grove City.

"We're evaluating our business plans with the transfer station and what the future holds," said Beth Schmucker, Ohio spokesperson for Waste Management. "We're yet to make a decision. I'm not really sure of a timeline at this point."

Starting Jan. 1, Waste Management will start delivering the trash it collects in Franklin County to SWACO's landfill. That amount is estimated to be 180,000 tons of solid waste in 2010. Previously, about 100,000 tons of trash annually collected in Franklin County went to Waste Management's landfill at Glenford in Perry County, using Canal Winchester as a temporary transfer point.

"It's going to cause Waste Management to change some of their internal operations and their routes and what goes through the transfer station," said Chris Strayer, director of development for Canal Winchester.

Keeping Franklin County trash out of Perry County will "have an impact on our business," Schmucker said, but she said Waste Management is "pleased to come to some kind of an agreement" with SWACO.

She said under the agreement with SWACO, the Canal Winchester transfer station can still accept trash from outside of Franklin County. However, that may not be enough for Waste Management to stay in the community.

"It's really going to end up being a business decision," Schmucker said, "and we're going to look at the amount of waste that's available that still would be able to go through the transfer station with the fact that the waste that's going through Franklin County is obviously is going directly to SWACO versus going through our transfer station. There are a lot of business aspects that are being looked at to determine what the best decision is going to be."

Waste Management was asked by SWACO to reduce the amount of Franklin County trash it exports in order to eliminate a projected $2-million shortfall in operating costs for 2010. SWACO executive director Ron Mills said Waste Management was offered a 75-percent collection rate, similar to what Republic and Rumpke, the two other trash-haulers serving Franklin County, already do.

"They responded and said, 'we would prefer to bring 100 percent of it,'" Mills said. "We accepted."

Even if Waste Management were to vacate the Canal Winchester transfer station, SWACO is interested in it, he said.

"Let me put it this way: That facility is integral to a contingency plan that we need to have in place in the event something were to temporarily interrupt the operation of the Franklin County landfill," Mills said. "Without the Canal Winchester transfer station being available on a moment's notice to serve in that capacity, there's a strong likelihood that we would have great difficulty moving waste from Franklin County to regional facilities, if our landfill were to be closed for any length of time. So this becomes an issue of public health and welfare."

The new agreement was finalized at a Nov. 3 meeting of the SWACO board of trustees by a unanimous 7-0 vote (two members were not present). It states that SWACO has the right of first refusal if Waste Management were to sell the transfer station, and that SWACO will pay Waste Management $270,000 annually to keep the facility operational.

"As the southeastern part of Columbus and the county continue to grow, that facility becomes more and more strategically located for use by the city of Columbus or by other haulers that are picking up refuse in that part of Franklin County as a way to more efficiently move it to our landfill," Mills said. "So that's the other reason that we're interested in keeping that facility functional."

He said between the agreement with Waste Management and modifications to SWACO's composting programs, "I'm more comfortable that we have plugged the hole that we're forecasting on operations for 2010."

Strayer said Canal Winchester officials understand SWACO'S budget concerns and the reasoning behind some of its decisions, but also wants it "to understand what the impact has on the village, and then maybe there's some kind of resolution that we can come to that will help us offset those losses and won't have a dramatic impact on village services or employment."

Now that the agreement with Waste Management has been approved, Mills said SWACO is willing to "explore with the village ways that we could help.

"We can now turn our attention to looking at the impact that this would create on the village and ways that we might be able to mitigate that impact," he said. "We will then take that to our board over the next 30-60 days for their review and consideration, and they will, in all likelihood, be asking the staff for a recommendation on how to proceed."

Strayer said village representatives will meet with SWACO "in the very near future."

"We have to understand what our maximum impact is first about what those losses are and how they can help offset them," he said.

Mills said SWACO can offer Canal Winchester "assistance in developing contract documents for solid waste collection services ... we can help them, if they would like us to help, in renegotiating the host agreement they currently have in place with Waste Management.

"Maybe we can give them some ideas on how they could get a better deal," he said. "That current agreement between the village and Waste Management expires in July of next year. Beyond that, our board may be willing to consider other ways of assisting, including financial -- a grant to the village, let's say. We issue grants through our grant review program to constituent municipalities every year."

Strayer said he hopes an agreement "can be made between all of the parties that would be beneficial to everybody, especially our residents, because they're going to be the ones that are most affected by any losses that we have through income tax or community services, or the host agreement that we have."