HELENA — The City of Helena and Lewis and Clark County talked trash Tuesday night, literally! They discussed their plan in a public meeting that aims to help shape the future of area waste management.
The meeting kicked off with an overview presentation of the project. The city has a goal to reduce what goes into the landfill by 35 percent by 2030, and 50 percent by 2040.
Right now, they are in the communication and planning phases of the master plan. They're asking for the public to help find the best solution to this challenge.
"What is desired in the future for other types of solid waste and recycling programs in those three phases are the first phase here gathering general feedback. The second phase is looking at different scenarios, and the third phase is preferred scenario," said Matt Evans, PE of Burns and McDonnell.
Once phase one is complete, and feedback is collected, a variety of solutions will be developed and presented in phase two. The third and final phase will include the selection of the preferred alternative.
"We take those alternatives, that feedback and we funnel it into one preferred alternative might have a piece of different pieces of different alternatives might funnel into one preferred alternative at the end. And in that communication phase, we'll be informing the public about the selection of the preferred scenario," said Evans.
With only having completed phase one of the communication phase having the public fill out surveys, they still don't know what the master plan is going to look like and encourage the public to continue offering feedback and ideas.
"Encourage your friends, your neighbors, everyone you can. We really need the public feedback. We want to know what's going to best service," said Stephanie Beckert, PE for Great West Engineering.
You can offer feedback here. The city has plans to have phase three completed by March 2024.
