Lake Clear transfer station reopens after major upgrades

LAKE CLEAR — A $1.5 million upgrade of waste transportation systems at the Lake Clear transfer station is now complete. Franklin County officials celebrated the project’s wrap-up with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday.
Franklin County Solid Waste Management Authority Executive Director Todd Perry said the improvements to the facility would come with “a new way of doing things.”
The upgrades are designed to streamline waste transportation, boost the station’s transport capacity, offer safer enclosures for operations, which were previously exposed to the elements, and generally improve efficiency, environmental impact and, officials hope, customer services.
The larger size of the new waste transportation trailers, which replace the station’s old system of using shipping containers, will save up to 250 trips to the landfill per year, meaning less fuel used, less maintenance and overall less time having facility trucks on the road, according to Perry. There are no landfills in the Adirondack Park; Franklin County’s regional landfill is in Constable. The more efficient trucks will not only help lessen their environmental impact but will also help them save money, keeping their prices more consistent.
This year, the FSWMA is planning to similarly upgrade the Malone and Tupper Lake transfer stations, but Perry said that Lake Clear has the busiest facility and the project there was a top priority. The Lake Clear transfer station manages about 13,000 tons of waste every year, which is more than Malone and Tupper Lake deal with, according to Perry.

The Lake Clear facility previously had a dumping pad where residents would leave their waste for construction vehicles to push it into shipping containers. Now, there’s an enclosed building with a pit in the back.
Trailers can be driven into it, where the trailers will be filled by construction vehicles, which will dump the waste into them from above. The transfer station had no means of compacting the garbage when shipping containers were used, but with the new system, the garbage will be compacted from above as it is loaded into the trailers. That will help increase the amount of refuse that can be carried to the landfill per trip.
“It’s just more efficient and user-friendly for both customers and our employees,” Perry said.
Next to where the trailers will be loaded, another old building that was expected to be demolished is now being salvaged and re-purposed as a section of the station for electronic waste, such as TVs, computers, batteries, phones and other electrical appliances.
Perry went to county legislators with the idea in the late summer of last year. In September, the FSWMA broke ground on the facility, which Perry said he believes was built in 1994. He said there hadn’t been many upgrades, if any at all, until now.

“It’s time that we get with the times,” Perry said.
The total cost of the project at the Lake Clear transfer station was $1.5 million, with up to $2 million being the expected cost of doing the same for Malone because of the need for replacing the scale house at the main entrance and adding a new building for e-waste transfer.
The FSWMA got a 20-year Solid Waste System Revenue Bond from Franklin County to finance the projects at Lake Clear and Malone. Since 1993, the FSWMA has had a Solid Waste Management Services Agreement with Franklin County, meaning that the county’s financial rating is tied to the bond.
FSWMA has a separate account, into which they make monthly deposits, to pay for replacing their equipment. Over five years, the account has grown large enough to make equipment purchases independent of county financing, according to Perry.
“I want the southern end of Franklin County to know that we are investing in our system not only at the regional landfill but in the facilities used at that part of the county,” he said. “These upgrades will allow us to be more efficient and have less impact on the environment.”