Weyerhaeuser Co., is shopping around its controversial Headquarters Landfill near Silver Lake and Cowlitz County is one of the interested parties — assuming it could be modified to also accept municipal garbage.

No formal offers have been made and the company also is gauging interest from private companies, said Cowlitz County Commission Chairman George Raiter. Still, Raiter said he’s intrigued by the idea of county ownership of the 300-acre landfill and the potential $1 million annually he thinks it could bring the county.

The landfill is one of several topics on the agenda Tuesday night during a commissioners town hall meeting in Toutle. Weyerhaeuser officials also will attend, Raiter said.

The meeting could be heated because the company pledged when it opened the landfill in 1993 that it would never apply for a municipal waste permit for the site, meaning only industrial waste would be housed there.

Even with the pledge the landfill was hotly contested by neighbors who said it would ruin their rural lifestyle, stink up the area and possibly pollute Silver Lake. In recent years residents have complained about the smell several times.

Despite past promises, if the landfill is sold any new owner could apply to the state to change the landfill’s permit.

Weyerhaeuser spokesman Anthony Chavez said Friday that the company is in the preliminary stages of marketing the landfill and no specifics have been determined. He said the company wants to focus on “core assets” and the landfill isn’t one of those.

As for the no municipal garbage pledge, Chavez said it’s just too soon to tell how a sale and new ownership would alter the landfill.

If the county bought the landfill, not only would there be more local control but it also could produce about $1 million a year in extra revenue for the county, Raiter said. The money would come from savings of not shipping the county’s waste to Eastern Washington and by fees from industrial waste customers. Raiter said it’s possible some of that money could be earmarked for Silver Lake-Toutle area concerns, as well as improvements countywide.

County commissioners have not agreed to pursue the matter, but staff members are reviewing Weyerhaeuser’s proposal. No purchase price has been discussed publicly.

Raiter sees several potential pros to county ownership:

n Residents would have local, public control.

n Local jobs would be maintained.

n The “carbon footprint” of the county’s trash would be reduced by not shipping it out of county.

n The county’s current garbage rates would stay the same and the landfill replacement fund wouldn’t have to be tapped to offset the costs of shipping out of county. Instead, that money would be available for future landfill needs several decades from now.

n Local businesses would continue to have a place for their industrial waste. Other companies also could be recruited, boosting the landfill’s profitability.

n If the county closed its existing landfill early the current landfill land near the Columbia River would be more flat than a full landfill and might be able more easily be used for some other purpose.

The Weyerhaeuser landfill stores industrial waste such as wood chips, pulp sludge and yard debris from Weyerhaeuser and Fibre among others. It is not permitted for hazardous waste or municipal, household waste.

Raiter said he did not know who the other parties are but assumes they’re regional private waste management companies.

Other companies could try to buy the landfill and use it to store municipal trash from other areas. That would be subject to public comment and permit process with the state, though, and Raiter said he would strongly oppose importing trash from elsewhere.

Tuesday’s town hall starts at 7 p.m. in the Toutle Lake School District multipurpose room. Residents can bring any matter to commissioners during the meeting, which also will include an update on the county’s Hoffstadt Bluffs Visitor Center.