McCourtney Road Transfer Station Renovation Project

The McCourtney Road Transfer Station Renovation project proposes improvements to the existing facility to address current traffic and material capacity issues and to accommodate future community growth and changes in State Regulations that affect our facility.

The McCourtney Road Transfer Station (MRTS) provides solid waste and recycling services for the communities of Grass Valley, Nevada City and the unincorporated areas of western Nevada County, California.

Nevada County’s Public Works Department (Solid Waste Division) is responsible for the project. The MRTS is owned by the County, but operated by Waste Management, Inc., of Nevada County (WM).

The MRTS was constructed in 1994 after the McCourtney Road Landfill closed and serves a large number of self-haul customers. Since 2016 traffic at the site has increased approximately 75%, from approximately 8,000 vehicles per month to more than 14,000, this is causing long vehicle queuing and substantial wait times during peak periods for customers.

The proposed improvements at MRTS include:

• Building a new 45,000 Square foot Public Receiving Area (PRA) Building that replaces the existing PRA and improves unloading facility capacity and efficiency (providing 16 additional unloading bays)
• Adding a new access road and entrance scale facilities, with 4 scales, to reduce arrival wait time
• Improving site circulation to provide easier access to the household hazardous waste (HHW) and recyclables buy-back areas
• Rearranging the site to provide easier access for green waste unloading and construction demolition debris unloading

Yes, on-site roadway improvements will occur to enable easier access to the HHW and Recycling buyback area.

Click to enlarge the image which depicts the preliminary site design (subject to change):

Since we are still in the initial design phase of the project we have not developed a detailed cost estimate; however, we estimate the cost of construction will be approximately $15.5 million. Waste Management has committed $5.6 million and the County is responsible for the remainder.

The proposed project will be constructed while maintaining all existing site operations. In order to achieve this construction phasing will be very important. The initial phases will include earthwork, utilities, pavement, and construction of the new PRA building. Subsequent phases will include construction of the new entrance/exit scale facility and associated roadway improvements, and ultimately decommissioning the existing scale house facility, etc. Our goal is to have a minimal impact on the existing operation, but we do anticipate that this will be one of the most challenging aspects of the project.

The new facility is sized to receive and process 125,000 tons per year, or an average of 400 tons per day or roughly an increase of 50% more than the current tonnage.

No rate increase being proposed.

Much of the current activities at the site are outdoors and on dirt or gravel surfaces. The new facility will provide all waste receipt and transfer on paved or concrete surfaces within a largely enclosed structure. Additionally, the new Transfer Station will be equipped with a dust and odor suppression system.

As required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the County prepared an Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration for the MRTS Renovation Project in winter 2020, which evaluated a wide range of resource issues such as air quality, noise, traffic, biological resources and hydrology as well as identified mitigation measures to reduce the severity of these impacts, if necessary.

Customers with HHW and recyclable materials will enter a “free area” of the site without having to wait in the same queuing lanes as customers using other operations at the facility (MSW, Green Waste and C&D). Because this area will be separate from the new scales facility and PRA, there will be more queuing lanes and better traffic flow at the HHW and recycling area.

The new facility is designed to accommodate the current and forecast traffic to the site. This will be accomplished in two ways:

The project is currently in the Project Study & Environmental Phase. Ongoing public outreach will be conducted throughout all project phases.

CURRENT PLANNING PHASE

• Project Study & Environmental Phase: Early Winter 2021
• Draft IS/MND & Public Review Period: Winter 2020/2021
• Project Report/County Board Approval: Winter Early Winter 2021

FUTURE PHASES

• Final Design & Permitting: Early Winter 2021 - Summer 2021
• Bidding: Fall 2021
• Construction: Winter 2021/2022 - Early Summer 2023