By Tuesday morning, I had allowed the little garbage can in my office to become full to overflowing, by carefully balancing each new piece of trash atop the growing mound. It’s actually not a ‘can’, per se. It’s a small plastic tub — the kind you can pick up at Walmart for a couple of bucks — and I typically allow it to become full to overflowing, threatening to spill trash onto the rug.
There’s method in my madness, however. The white trash bags that I use to line the container are oversized, and can easily hold more than the can. I hate to waste that excess capacity.
But on Tuesday morning, I broke down and lifted the white bag out of the can, cinched up the top, and carried it out to the curb, where we keep our big, bear-safe garbage can. The big can was already about half-full, and it had been only one day since At Your Disposal had emptied it on Monday morning.
Not surprising, though. Ursala and Chris had spent the weekend doing spring cleaning. There’s nothing like spring cleaning to fill your garbage can. But of course, the big can will get emptied next Monday.
An hour later, I found myself in the audience of the Tuesday morning work session at the Archuleta County Administration Office on Lewis Street, listening to a presentation to the Board of County Commissioners by Road and Bridge Manager Kevin Pogue.
Mr. Pogue was not discussing roads or bridges, however. The subject of his presentation was the Archuleta County Landfill, a problematic operation located at 9179 Trujillo Road, about seven miles south of Pagosa Springs.
Mr. Pogue was accompanied by consultant Julie Linn, PG. ‘PG’ as in ‘Professional Geologist’.
Ms. Linn works out of the Durango office of national engineering firm SEH (also known as Short Elliott Hendrickson Inc.) where she is listed as ‘Senior Scientist II’.
Ms. Linn is one of the employees featured on the SEH website, where she answered some questions about her work.
Can you share a bit about your background and experience? What drives you?
In the 1980s, I became aware of just how much contamination was impacting our environment. I studied Geology at Northern Illinois University as, back then, there was no “environmental science” pathway in college. My ultimate goal then was and remains to leave our world a little cleaner than when I got here.
I have worked on a huge variety of sites, from decades-long cleanups on industrial superfund sites to small, isolated environmental cleanups. I thoroughly enjoy seeing formerly impacted sites being redeveloped to beneficial reuse, especially if that reuse benefits the community.
I am also driven to keep clean things clean, before there is a chance for the environment to be impacted, such as proper material storage and disposal as well as wetlands — which do a wonderful job of cleaning our water and providing habitat for unique plants and animals.
What does the role of a senior scientist entail? Why is it so important for our clients have this resource?
Senior scientists have the capability to span many skills and sectors, from understanding how to perform basic sampling and why certain tasks must be done in a specific way, to helping clients consider past, present and future implications of their decisions.
The big picture down to the smallest details of a project are important to understand thoroughly. The skill of a senior scientist is not only that we understand this, but we must also be able to convey such critical information to our clients in a way that makes sense to them and strategically supports their projects.
I gathered from the presentation by Mr. Pogue and Ms. Linn that the previous operations manager for the landfill, Matt Archuleta, had resigned from that position, and that Mr. Pogue — as Road and Bridge Manager — had stepped up to represent the County during a recent inspection of the landfill by the state of Colorado.
Landfill operations need to be inspected regularly, to keep environmental problems from developing. Inspections are especially important, perhaps, in smaller rural communities where it’s difficult to find qualified people to run a landfill operation.
This was my first time seeing or listening to Mr. Pogue, whom I gather to be new to the job. Or to the ‘jobs’. It’s actually fairly normal for working folks in Pagosa to have more than one job, in order to make ends meet. I’m not sure how normal it is for a County employee to be filling more than one job position. During the work session, one of the commissioners mentioned that the County is struggling to fill vacant positions, and I think I heard the number “30 vacancies” mentioned.
There are two basic methods to reducing the number of unfilled positions, at a county government. One method is to hire people to fill the vacancies.
The other method is to eliminate the job positions that you can’t fill.
Some of the second method may be going on. Several months back, Archuleta County Public Works Director Bob Perry resigned from his position, which entailed oversight of a few County departments: Road and Bridge, Transportation, Solid Waste, Weed & Pest, Buildings & Grounds, and Fleet Maintenance.
As I understand the situation, the County is not advertising for a new Public Works Director.
Which should be a cost savings, in terms of salary expenses.
Maybe we really didn’t need a Public Works Director, to keep an eye on the landfill operations manager… who was, in turn, keeping an eye on the landfill staff… who were making sure the landfill didn’t cause any environmental problems?
I gathered from Mr. Pogue’s presentation, that the state inspector had identified some problems during the recent inspection, and that the County may be facing some fines for violating state regulations.
I gathered from Ms. Linn’s presentation that the landfill is quickly running out of space for more trash.
Full to overflowing?