BEATRICE - The Beatrice Area Solid Waste Agency has reaffirmed an earlier decision to move ahead with licensing, design and construction of a new landfill.

It would be located southwest of the current landfill, when space runs out in phase five of the current landfill. The agency also has selected the engineering firm of Burns and McDonnell for the project.

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Agency members were deciding between a new landfill and a transfer station. City Administrator Tobias Tempelmeyer says 2025 is the target date by when the new landfill site needs to be ready. The current facility has seen more tons of garbage deposited, because new customers have been gained. Increased tons of refuse have also been brought to the landfill and nearby construction waste site because of demolition of the old Store Kraft Manufacturing area, the old Beatrice Community Hospital and from clean-up of a coal gas plant site.

Tempelmeyer says the engineering firm has estimated the expenses to construct the new landfill.

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The project would be paid for through a revenue bond issue, backed by money the facility generates through user charges and landfill fees. The first phase of the new landfill is expected to last five to ten years, but the total life of the entire site south of a highway spur, is projected to be 63 years.

Bond issues for the current landfill and leases on two major pieces of equipment are both set to be paid off, in 2024.

Tempelmeyer says a previous engineering study indicated it cost about $21 a ton less to operate a landfill, than a transfer station.

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Seneca, Kansas brings over ten-thousand tons of garbage to the Beatrice landfill per year. Beatrice Landfill Superintendent Jason Moore says that includes garbage from communities in southeast Nebraska and in northeast Kansas, taken to a transfer station there. He says there's also other potential customers for the Beatrice facility.