Wolf Valley convenience center opens
Anderson County officials, including Mayor Terry Frank (sixth from left) and County Commission Chairman Josh Anderson (third from left) were on hand last Friday morning for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new county waste convenience center on East Wolf Valley Road. (photo:SUBMITTED PHOTO )
The previous location was closed May 28 so the dumpsters could be moved to the new site for the scheduled opening, as the county had previously announced.
County Mayor Terry Frank and county Solid Waste Management Supervisor Geoff Trabalka were on hand Friday morning for an official ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“It’s up and running, but we do have one or two items to finalize at the new site,” Trabalka said Friday.
“It’s a bigger site, and will be safer for people to get into and out of,” he said. “The old one was on the corner of Clinton Highway and was only about 100-by-100-feet square. It was extremely small and tight.
“It was hard getting out onto Clinton Highway with all the traffic there. Getting it away from that was good. The flow of traffic will be so much better at the new location.”
The upgrade was necessary, Frank said.
“Wolf Valley and Glen Alpine are our busiest centers,” the mayor said. “By volume for regular trash, Wolf Valley is our busiest center — but it’s very close to Glen Alpine. Glen Alpine does more recycling, but Wolf Valley is a close second in recycling.”
Locating a site and building the new convenience center took longer than expected, Frank said.
“There were some failed attempts to purchase property, but the third time’s the charm,” she said. “We desperately needed it because of the lack of space at the old site, and the way it backed up onto Clinton Highway.
“We’re glad we were finally able to purchase this property, with the County Commission approving the funding,” Frank said.
For now, hours of all Anderson County waste convenience centers are 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
But that will change on July 1, when all of the centers will begin opening an hour later, at 8 a.m., Trabalka said.
That change helps facilitate the scheduling of the part-time attendants assigned to each of the county’s six convenience centers, he said.
“The 12 attendants are provided by Waste Connections, and with the new schedule, each one will work three 10-hour shifts each week,” Trabalka said.
They previously had been working 33 hours a week each, and were going to have to be treated by Waste Connections as full-time employees, and given health-care insurance, he said. With the cut in hours, they will not be considered full-time,” Trabalka said.
This is the second Anderson County convenience center to move in the past two years. The other one was the Glen Alpine center, which moved from a site next to Ray Varner Ford on North Charles G. Seivers Boulevard to just off Norris Freeway (U.S. 441) south of Andersonville Highway.
In addition, the county completely rebuilt the Marlow Convenience Center last year, making it larger and more easily accessible.