Flathead County will continue to offer the blue recycling bins at eight rural green-box collection sites for at least another year, the Solid Waste District board decided Tuesday.

The board unanimously approved a one-year extension of its lapsed recycling contract with Valley Recycling.

Blue bins will remain at the Ashley Lake, Bigfork, Columbia Falls, Coram, Creston, Lakeside, Somers and landfill collection sites.

It remains to be seen, though, whether the blue bins will remain at Super 1 Foods and Albertsons in Kalispell and the Army-Navy store in Evergreen. Those sites aren’t included in the county’s contract, but Valley Recycling District Manager Josh Brown said the company is trying to work out a deal with those stores.

“We internally will work with those locations to keep something there to provide consistency for the community,” though Valley can’t guarantee yet that those store sites will remain, Brown told the Solid Waste board.

The two grocery store recycling spots are the most popular for recyclers. Albertsons alone accounts for 41 percent of the recyclables collected by the county.

The county is paring down the number of recycling sites because of the cost. Since 1998 the program has lost well over $400,000. For the coming year the county expects recycling revenue to be about $67,000 with a net loss of about $141,500.

“This will be by far the most expensive year,” Public Works Director Dave Prunty said.

Eliminating the store sites in the recycling contract seemed like a reasonable compromise, Prunty said, because local residents can bring their recyclables to Valley Recycling and Pacific Recycling.

The county’s contract with Valley Recycling ended in January, and when the company told county officials the cost of providing service would nearly triple, the county continued with Valley on a month-to-month basis until a decision could be made about how to move forward with recycling.

Recycling will be addressed as the Solid Waste District updates its 2009 strategic plan in the coming months. SWT Engineering of Ontario, Calif., will revisit the study primarily as it pertains to proposed consolidation of green-box sites and recycling.

Plans to close the Bigfork and Lakeside sites were put on hold until the consulting firm can further study the planned consolidation. Prunty said he met with a Bigfork citizens group Nov. 15 and urged the group to make a priority list of their concerns.

“Bigfork will come up with a top-10 list of concerns to provide to the consultant,” Prunty said.

Both Bigfork and Lakeside residents have testified they believe the strategic plan doesn’t adequately address community needs.

“Sometimes we don’t get a lot of comments until a plan affects someone,” Prunty added.

He estimated it could cost around $30,000 to update the strategic plan. The original report cost more than $200,000 and would have been scheduled for a five-year review next year.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at [email protected].