An engineering study will be the best way to determine the proper site for a proposed transfer station, Public Works Director Richard Parnell said.

“We want to stress we’re not 100 percent set on a site,” the public works director said in a telephone interview today. “We have looked at other sites. We’re aware we need to look at this. We’ve not got a site set in stone or blood.”

Some of the sites the city has looked at in the past include the old landfill site at Deepcreek Road, a site across from public works which housed the old dog pound and a piece of land next to Halifax Linen which has since been sold. “We’ve had private (citizens) offer us land but we never looked at them.”

Parnell also said communication with the county is planned.

Each of the sites have plusses and minuses, including the one the city is currently looking at, land at the public works building on Hinson Street, which residents in the Lincoln Heights and South Rosemary communities have objected to.

“This is why we need to take this next step,” Parnell said, referring to an engineering study.

The engineering study was discussed at Tuesday’s work session. “They’re going to use good engineering judgment.”

The latest revenue projections for the approximately $695,000 project show with a transfer station the city could see operating revenues over expenses of $282,814. Without a station that figure would be $180,742.

The projections are based on 28,000 tons per year with 7,200 coming from the city’s own solid waste and debris.

Financing options have also changed since the matter was first discussed, Sabiston has said, with debt service being calculated on financing $700,000 over 20 years at an estimated percentage rate of 3.05 percent.

Financing for 20 years instead of 10 years contained in earlier documents would mean an annual debt service of $47,268.66.

The transfer station concept is to build a facility at the city’s maintenance yard where residential and commercial solid waste may be delivered and then transferred by independent haulers to a landfill.

The city’s own collection trucks and third party commercial haulers which pick up solid waste or choose to bring it from other areas will be the primary users, an earlier memo says.

Preliminary studies by the state Department of Transportation show Hinson Street, where the proposed station would be located, would not have to be improved if 100,000 tons a year were transported on it.