Board approves moving ahead with memorandum of understanding to allow Town of Montross trash at county transfer station

County staff presented a draft memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Town of Montross that would allow the town’s approved trash vendor to dispose of town residential, business and designated county-office trash at the county transfer station at no charge, and the Board of Supervisors authorized staff to proceed.

Under the draft MOU, the town would select a vendor (subject to county approval), identify the collection area and certify that trash delivered to the transfer station originated in the town. The town’s vendor would be required to cross the scales so tonnage could be tracked; the MOU would establish an exempt bulk-weight baseline (tons per week) that the parties would agree on and use to identify deviations. The county would retain the right to inspect or monitor the truck and to review transfer-station invoices for discrepancies.

County staff said both the county and the town would benefit: the town would gain access to the county transfer station at a lower cost to residents, while the county would stop making a small existing payment to Montross for pickup of several county sites and would instead add three county pickup locations (A.T. Johnson building, Westmoreland County Park behind the high school, and the county office behind the historic courthouse) to the town’s route at no charge under the agreement.

Staff recommended that the board direct the county administrator to finalize the MOU with a baseline tonnage to be inserted, using initial data from Montross as the baseline. The board approved that direction and authorized staff to proceed; a board member suggested Montross or Colonial Beach staff could run a trial route to help establish baseline tonnage before the agreement is finalized.

The county attorney reviewed the draft MOU in the meeting; supervisors voted to instruct the county administrator to proceed with a finalized agreement with the Town of Montross.