This job stinks — to everyone but its workers
Staff writer
It was 10 a.m., an hour late, and Marion’s recycling still hadn’t come in.
Jessy Thouvenell, an employee at the county transfer station, peered into a trailer, filled about halfway with Hillsboro’s plastic bottles and cardboard, and drizzled with a layer of rain.
Marion County’s transfer station lacks a wall on one side — better ventilation — and rain and snow easily get in. Employees brave the elements each day to compact and move the county’s trash.
“Oh, it gets cold,” said Amanda McReynolds, the station’s longest-tenured employee.
Station director Josh Housman added: “When we have wind, if it comes from a certain direction, we have trash that blows out,”
On Friday mornings, Hillsboro and Marion send in recycling. But Marion’s didn’t look to be coming anytime soon.
Eventually, Thouvenell gave up. He descended to the lower level of the station, and covered the trailer with a tarp before attaching it to a truck and moving it to a storage lot.
“This is our new trailer, so if we use it for recycling, it keeps it from getting too dirty,” McReynolds said.
The crew hauled a older trailer into position to use for the day’s trash.
They routinely climb into the massive, smelly trailers to scrub their sides.
But the scent is nothing, employees say, compared to some they have smelled over the years.
“Hillsboro used to dump, and there was a certain day of the week when they picked up the Chinese food,” McReynolds said. “That stunk. And there was one time that the pond of the golf course had a chemical runoff and killed hundreds and hundreds of fish. They put them in a dumpster, threw them in the trash truck. That stinks.”
“I’ve kind of gone nose-blind,” Thouvenell added.
It’s clear you need a hardy disposition to work at the transfer station, where approximately 30,000 pounds of trash is dumped daily by residents, businesses, and the cities.
Add to that five tons of weekly recycling from Hillsboro and Marion, and hundreds of flies that happily cavort among the mess.
“It just takes a different kind of person,” Housman said.
The small team that works there is proud of the civic service provided. Employees appreciate each other to the fullest.
“Josh is probably the best boss I’ve ever had,” McReynolds said, citing flexible hours and the ability to operate skid-loaders and backhoes as a reason she likes the work. “I love running equipment. I’ve run equipment all my life.”
Bill Stabler said the transfer station was “a lot more laid back” than his prior position at a landfill in El Dorado.
“You gotta be a jack of all trades,” he added.
Thouvenell was part of a different county department before he decided he’d rather work at the transfer station.
“I was somebody who’d done construction and stuff like that, and they’d put me in an office,” he said. “I was going crazy.”
Director Housman splits his time between the county’s noxious weed department, household hazardous waste department, and transfer station. He has directed the latter for almost five years.
“My wife’s from this area, but there wasn’t any family who’d worked at a transfer station before,” Housman said. “It was just something I did and ended up enjoying doing.”
He logs the city trucks that enter the station, notes any construction and demolition waste material, and files copious amounts of paperwork with the county.
Housman also is ready to get on the floor with his crew when needed.
“My guys know if we have something, I’ll get in the middle with it,” he said. “They’ll get down with me, or I’ll get in with them, and we’ll get things working. … I’ll go down and help cut tires if I have to.”
Housman’s employees are complimentary of his commitment.
“If we’re shorthanded, or one of us has got to take off or something, he’s got no problem coming down here,” Thouvenell said.
Housman returned the compliment.
“I’ve got a really good crew working, and they all get in and they do their job and do their best,” he said.
After each load of trash is compacted and shoved into a trailer, the crew can relax a bit.
Every so often, a resident will drive up with garbage or recycling bags.
Trash is free to dump, while recycling costs $5 a bag.
“A lot of the old people that come in, sometimes we’ll just kinda look the other way, because they normally only have a bag or two, and we’ll try to help them,” Thouvenell said.
McReynolds added: “I always tell people, wait, and make it worth the $5.”
After the trash trailer was installed, the crew huddled together in the opening of the station. Stabler lit a Black and Mild.
Thouvenall was discussing his shirt — the county still hadn’t provided him with a name-tagged uniform.
A large doll of Sully from “Monsters Inc.” wearing a construction vest watched pensively from the opposite side of the station. A poster of Mike Wazowski hung alongside it.
On another wall, a plaster skull wearing a safety hat and headphones presided over the space.
A few pieces of extremely dusty furniture, including a wheelchair, a desk, and various pieces of wood, rested in the corner of the room.
After a few minutes of conversation, the trash crew stepped back into the rainy lot to work on one of the trucks.
Stabler detached a trailer from the truck, the Black and Mild still hanging from his mouth.
“We’re the redheaded stepchildren of the county,” he remarked. “They don’t like us.”
Why not?
Stabler laughed. “We smell like trash.”