Perry County Solid Waste Transfer Station Closed After EPA Cites Violations

The Perry County Garage solid waste transfer station in the Christopher community has been shut down since March 11 after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited violations requiring correction, leaving residents without access to a free disposal site that has operated for more than a decade.

Perry County Judge-Executive Scott Alexander said the county moved quickly to close the facility rather than let dumping continue while repairs are planned. "As of now, there is not an official timeframe on when it will reopen," Alexander said. "We have to get a fence back up and they want us to control some of the run-off and they also don't want any material remaining on the pad whenever we open it back up. We can't make the improvements we need to make if we continue to let people dump, so we shut it down and we're getting a design on what we want to do and once we get a crew freed up, they will come in and get started on it."

The three EPA-flagged issues Alexander described are concrete: replacing a fence, installing runoff controls, and clearing all material from the pad before the site can reopen. Design work is underway, but the timeline for a construction crew to begin depends on county crew availability.

The transfer station has been available at no charge to Perry County residents throughout Alexander's administration, a stretch of more than ten years. Alexander has credited the free service with cutting down on illegal dumping across the county, making its closure a practical concern for households that rely on it for waste disposal.

County officials say the closure is necessary to complete all required improvements before the site reopens to the public. No EPA statement or formal enforcement documents have been made publicly available, and no cost estimate or contractor has been announced for the repair work.