• Towns limited in taking private septic shipments.

The Lincoln County Commission hosted towns and septic system businesses in a July 8 meeting centered around finding a solution for a drop location.

Chief of Staff Stephen Allen advised the meeting was “information only” for the packed room of business and town officials at the county’s Afton Planning and Zoning Office.

Facing increased use of the Afton sewage facilities, the town has curtailed further septic system and portable restroom sewage drops at the municipal facilities.

The town is reconstructing its waste water treatment facilities west of the community.

Afton representatives at the county meeting emphasized the system is specifically designed to accommodate Afton growth and not the entire Star Valley area.

The Afton decision has redirected septic system companies to seek other drop locations. They reported at the meeting that Marbleton in Sublette County and Granger in Sweetwater County were accepting the loads in recent months.

Lincoln County authorizes the permits for waste water transport and discharge. Each town attending the meeting was asked to briefly summarize their services at the meeting.

They provided the following reports:
Alpine’s system is a membrane plant and not designed to accept the dumps from outside of the municipal sewage system. The town’s septic pumping, outside of the sewer system, goes to Pinedale.

Thayne is not taking septic transports in a small municipal sewer system.

Cokeville is running at 60 percent capacity for a small town system.

Star Valley Ranch is operating on private septic tanks without a sewer system and the RV community provides a small lagoon system for discharge.

Labarge has a small system but is notfunded for expansion.

Kemmerer/Diamondville is looking at reconstruction of the joint powers system.

Afton again emphasized that growth is outpacing the ability of the current waster facilities.

A representative from the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) advised that funding should be sought to expand an the existing system in Lincoln County.