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Site visits and wood recycling surge at Kootenai County transfer stations, staff say
Summary
County staff reported notable increases in site visits and tonnage at Ramsey, Prairie and rural sites for Jan–Mar 2026 vs 2025; Ramsey saw a 215% increase in recycled wood tonnage attributed to storm debris cleanup and mild weather.
County staff told commissioners April 7 that transfer station traffic and tonnage have risen this year, driven by mild weather, storm debris cleanup and population growth, and that a network outage likely undercounted some transactions.
Angela, who presented the quarterly statistics, said Ramsey site visits were up 12.3% and tonnage up 10.7% for January–March, while Prairie customers and tonnage were both up 9.6% (with Prairie at historic highs for that period). She said county landfill tonnage was up 11.3 — "over 5,000 more tons" year‑to‑date — and rural site visits at Apple and Chilco were up 7.4% with tonnage up 3.4%.
Angela highlighted a striking increase in wood debris: Ramsey received 683 tons of wood in the comparable 2025 period versus 2,150 tons in 2026 — about a 215% increase. She said the county recycles the wood: a contractor grinds and hauls the material to Lewiston for processing.
Commissioners asked for reasons; staff pointed to the mild winter, growth, December storm debris, and a roughly 24‑hour network outage that prevented some transactions from being captured (some large loads were recorded with hand tickets). Phillips and Angela encouraged use of a planned quick‑drop site opening on or before April 15 to reduce lines for small loads.
No public comments or votes were recorded at the meeting.
