Greene County lawmakers approved more than $4.25 million in contracts on Aug. 19 to overhaul the aging Windham transfer station, bringing total funding for the project to about $4.92 million.
The Legislature unanimously awarded a $4,010,326 general construction contract to Jersen Construction Group, a Saratoga County contractor. Work on the 8,600-square-foot facility on Mitchell Hollow Road could begin as early as this fall.
Lawmakers also awarded a $241,800 electrical contract to Cairo-based CDE Electric Inc. Those contracts, combined with $268,500 previously approved for engineering and asbestos work, $240,000 for an excavator and dumpster, and $160,000 in contingency funding, bring the project’s total allocation to $4,920,626.
The project calls for demolishing and removing existing retaining walls, structures, foundations, and utilities, and constructing a metal building of about 8,500 square feet on concrete foundations. The contractor will also install a pre-fabricated, climate-controlled office with a bathroom to serve as the station’s scale house.
The existing 70-foot truck scale will be moved onto new concrete foundations, and the trash compactor will be salvaged and reinstalled with a new steel garbage chute. A temporary elevated drop-off area will also allow the station to operate during construction.
The station, built in the mid-1980s, is on land owned by the town of Windham and operated by Greene County. It is one of two transfer stations serving the county’s mountain towns. The other is on Hylan Road in Hunter.
County officials said the Windham upgrades would help reduce pressure on the Hunter station, where traffic and trash volume have risen significantly.
The Hunter station handled 1,800 tons of trash from 17,000 customers in 2018, according to Scott Templeton, Greene County’s highway and solid waste superintendent. By 2025, those figures had risen to 12,000 tons and more than 39,000 customers.
“It’s a substantial increase in the volume and customer base up on the mountaintop,” Templeton said at a Public Works Committee meeting this month.
The Hunter station is registered to handle 13,000 tons of trash annually.
“We’re pushing right now,” Templeton said.
Legislator Daryl Legg, who represents Hunter, Lexington, and Halcott, said Windham’s cramped layout has led some residents to travel to Hunter instead.
“Anybody that’s ever gone to Windham realizes what a conundrum it is to get in there and get stuff out,” he said at the meeting. “It’s very small, it’s very tight, and it backs up quick.”
Despite the increased volume, Leff said the Hunter station has operated without significant problems.
“I go there all the time, there’s never really a problem,” he said. “They’ve handled the increase quite a bit, and kudos to them.”
The redesigned Windham station will separate residential drop-off areas from commercial operations and heavy equipment, It will also offer single-stream recycling, allowing residents to drop off recyclables without sorting them.
“The commercial side of the house is gonna be completely separated from the residential drop-off,” he said. “The people that want to drop off a bag, one bag of garbage, two bags of garbage, are going to be separated from the commercial end where the heavy equipment is located.”
The facility is currently open from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and on Mondays; and from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Sundays.
Connor Greco is a staff reporter for The Overlook covering Windham, Hunter, and surrounding Greene County communities. Send correspondence to connor@theoverlooknews.com.
