By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
In the past four years, the Tucker County Solid Waste Authority has seen marked improvement since June of 2021 when the State of West Virginia first started overseeing the entity. The numbers came as part of a report given by County Accountant Mark Joseph during the October 27th meeting of the Tucker County Solid Waste Authority.
“Its important to note that the landfill has been able to operate profitably through this period of time without a fee increase,” Joseph said.
In June 2021 the Authority saw Net Income of $52,638. By 2025, that number had increased to $278,396 for the same 12-month period. Overall, according to Joseph, the data showed an increase of 45% in profits for the entity without a rate increase to the public since 2019, according to Landfill Director Jody Alderman.
However, that number must be weighed with the fact that Total Revenue saw an increase of 44.66% for that same period. The Authority saw $3,473,698 in 2021, but by 2025, that amount had increased to $5,025,209. That lead to an increase in Gross Profits of 44.52% from 2,938,232 in 2021 to $4,246,252 in 2025.
Cash on hand also increased in the same period by $839,470. In 2021, the facility held $330,547 in cash on hand. By 2025, that number had ballooned to $1,170,017.
Total cash in restricted accounts also blossomed during the four year period, as well. In 2021, the facility had $937,047 and within four years, had increased that number by over $3.5 million to $4,475,214.
The increase stemmed from mostly an increase in tonnage to the facility. Tonnage to the facility increased by 44.95% in the four years from June of 2021 to June of 2025. In 2021, the facility saw 65,320 tons of refuse enter the facility. By 2025, that number had nearly doubled to 94,685 tons.
“So by managing the cost and the additional tonnage we have been able to gain this additional revenue without any additional cost to the public,” Joseph said.
While such figures may sound like an excessive amount, the number must be tempered with such factors as a 79.89% increase in Total Employment Costs that saw an increase from $607,003 in June of 2021 to $1,091,795 in June of 2025. As a percent of revenue, employment costs raised 24.33% in those same four years.
Operating Expenses also nearly doubled in the same period. An increase of 49.80% was reported by Joseph. Operating Expenses increased from $1,645,408 in 2021 to $2,478,315 in 2025. Fueled largely by increases in inflation, material cost increases and increases in utilities.
Environmentally, the Authority was able to reduce the amount of leachate the facility produced by 10.29% in the four year period. In 2021, the Tucker County Landfill produced 7,262,692 gallons of leachate. By 2025, that number had reduced to 6,515,625 gallons. However, Joseph said that the leachate totals will be higher for the period coming up.
“Our budget is up to around seven to eight million this coming year,” Joseph said. “The actual transportation cost has increased. Its up to 6.6 cents a gallon.”