After nearly 20 years with the Park County government, landfill manager Tim Waddell has retired.
“I’ve had enough,” Waddell said on Sept. 14, his last official day.
He …
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After nearly 20 years with the Park County government, landfill manager Tim Waddell has retired.
“I’ve had enough,” Waddell said on Sept. 14, his last official day.
He started in the county’s road and bridge department some 19-and-a-half years ago, but was “lured to the dark side” several years later, he quipped, by then-landfill manager Dave Hoffert. When commissioners fired Hoffert in 2008, Waddell took over.
During his 15 years with the department, the facilities went from “dumps” to “landfills,” Waddell said, becoming subject to more regulations and standards.
Some of those regulations led to the closure of the Meeteetse landfill and to the partial closures of the Powell and Clark landfills, all during Waddell’s tenure as manager. Both the Clark and Powell sites remain open, accepting materials like construction and demolition waste, but they no longer accept large quantities of household trash. That change forced the City of Powell to take its garbage elsewhere and spawned a bitter dispute between city and county leaders. The City of Powell, which had hoped for a subsidy from the county, ultimately found it cheaper to haul its trash to Billings instead of to the county’s upgraded landfill outside of Cody; hard feelings have lingered.
Waddell said he’s afraid the dispute is set to flare up again and “I’m not going to miss ... that, either,” he said.
Park County commissioners thanked and recognized Waddell for his service last week, presenting him with a thank you note and a gift card to Brewgards in Cody.
The newly retired Waddell said he’s planning to get in some hunting in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, county officials have narrowed the search for a new landfill manager to a small pool of finalists, with a decision expected soon.