EKO wants to stay at port another year – just for storage and sales

By ELAINE WILLIAMS of the Tribune

Piles of product might still be on the EKO Compost site after December 2015, the time previously set for the business to leave its site near the base of the Lewiston Hill.

EKO Compost asked its landlord – the Port of Lewiston – Wednesday if it could stay at least one more year. The extension would provide a place to store about 40,000 cubic yards of compost before being shipped to customers like Home Depot and Wilber Ellis, a farm products supplier, EKO Lewiston plant Manager Rick Truby said at a Wednesday port commission meeting.

The commissioners told Truby they would make a decision at a future meeting. And Commissioner Mike Thomason told Truby that the commissioners have already granted EKO one extension.

“I was a little reluctant to even do that,” he said.

If the port doesn’t grant the request, the compost would have to be shipped to another EKO location in Missoula, Mont.

“It would be very expensive,” Truby said.

Truby said the North Lewiston site would also be used as a place to sell compost and other products such as bark and rock to the general public.

The operations that would be left would not involve processing yard waste and biosolids, leftovers from sewage treatment, into compost and would not create any odor, Truby said.

Under the plan, Truby said EKO would continue to follow the previously established timeline of accepting yard waste only through June 30, and be done processing by the end of the year.

Starting July 1, Clearwater Composting, a company set up by Latah Sanitation, will accept yard waste for free from residents of Lewiston and all other parts of Nez Perce County except Culdesac and Lapwai. Clearwater Composting will be open 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. seven days a week, except holidays, at 3956 Industrial Way in Lewiston.

Latah Sanitation won the city of Lewiston contract previously held by EKO after complaints about the smell. Clearwater Composting will use a different process, said Andy Boyd, operations manager of Latah Sanitation.

“Hopefully we’ll make people forget that issue,” he said.

—

Williams may be contacted at [email protected] or (208) 848-2261.