May 5, 2025
By: Dwayne Page
For years the county maintained an unmanned garbage collection convenience center in the Wolf Creek community at the intersection of Medley Amonette Road (Highway 96) and Old Buffalo Valley Road, but its now been removed by the county because it was located on the Tennessee Department of Transportation right of way and TDOT didn’t want it there.
In March at a public works committee meeting, County Public Works Director Brian Reed raised the issue about whether the Wolf Creek site could eventually become a manned site. According to County Mayor Matt Adcock, Reed later checked with TDOT and the answer was not only no, but even the unmanned site there would have to go. It has since been removed from the site but the county has not yet come up with an alternate convenience site location for Wolf Creek.
During Monday night’s regular monthly county commission meeting, first district resident Brandon Foster raised concerns about the convenience site having been removed and later in the meeting, first district commissioner Tom Chandler asked that the county find another location for it.
“As a commissioner from district 1 as well as being an avid user of what has been referred to as the Buffalo Valley convenience waste site I am at a loss with this waste site disappearing. I was surprised that it was gone. It needs to be replaced, and I would say desperately. I would urge our waste management manager and this commission to find some replacement for this convenience site in that general area fairly quickly. If you look at a map there is a very sizeable hole now in our convenience site servicing in district 1 and DeKalb County that is the gateway to a large portion of the tourist traffic that comes into DeKalb County,” said Commissioner Chandler.
The county’s public works committee will discuss the issue at a meeting Thursday, May 8 at 6 p.m. in the lower courtroom of the courthouse.
The county has 11 manned convenience sites and Wolf Creek was one of three unmanned sites. The other two are at Temperance Hall and in the Austin Bottoms community. Of the fourteen sites, the county owns all but three, Snow Hill, Silver Point, and at Alexandria.
According to Reed, the state is making a push for counties to go to all manned sites and is funding grants for that purpose.
“The state has put a priority on grants for those sites and is funding up to $125,000 with a 10% local match per site and I would like to apply for some grants in next year’s budget to eventually get rid of our unmanned sites,” said Reed.