Upper Cumberland County leaders are considering a proposal to combine state grant funds to hire a single consultant for a mandated 10-year solid waste plan.
The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation is requiring a new long-term waste management strategy. UCDD Executive Director Mark Farley said the state prefers regional cooperation over individual county efforts.
“They have allocated out at least 25,000 for each county to have money go into this and in some counties depending on size, I think Putnam County is a little bit more,” Farley said.
Farley said that TDEC does not want to review 85 separate county plans and is encouraging regions to form planning groups. He suggested potentially splitting the remaining unaligned counties into a northern group and a southern group to streamline the grant application process.
“And basically all that would be doing is to go back instead of having 10 different grants, what we would do and Lily in our office would handle that, she would facilitate, do one grant application on behalf, you would pull all your money and hire one consultant to do one plan that covers those five,” Farley said.
TDEC representative Jesse McBride said that funding increases to $50,000 for counties with populations over 50,000, specifically identifying Cumberland and Putnam counties. Officials discussed the efficiency of unifying all ten counties versus smaller clusters based on current waste transportation routes.
“If I was a consultant, if I had to choose between doing a 25,000 dollar plan and a 125,000 dollar plan, I’m going with the 125,000 dollar plan,” Farley said.
The board agreed to table the decision until the next meeting to allow officials time to discuss potential partnerships. Farley said that while the state prefers regional plans, counties still retain the right to file individual plans if they choose.
“If a group of you want to go together and submit with one application, we’re here to assist you in that,” Farley said.
The state expects to have its own 10-year plan completed by late summer or early fall.